Home Posts tagged "Physical Therapists"

CSP Elite Baseball Development Podcast: Dan Swinscoe on Essential Clinical Skills and Rehab Approaches

We welcome physical therapist Dan Swinscoe to this week’s podcast for a great in-depth conversation on the unique needs of rotational sport athletes and key sports medicine considerations across the baseball lifespan. Dan also offers some great insights for up-and-coming rehabilitation specialists looking to become well-rounded practitioners, highlighting key competencies and emphasizing the importance of openmindedness. Dan's been an awesome resource to me over the years, and I'm excited to share his expertise with a larger audience.

A special thanks to this show's sponsor, AG1. Head to https://www.DrinkAG1.com/cressey and you'll receive a free 10-pack of AG1 travel packets with your first order.

 

You can follow Dan on Twitter at @DanSwinscoe and Instagram at @DanSwincoe.

Sponsor Reminder

This episode is brought to you by AG1. AG1 is your daily foundational nutrition; it has 75 whole-food sourced ingredients designed to support your body’s foundational nutrition needs across five critical areas of health: 1) energy, 2) immunity, 3) gut health, 4) hormonal support, and 5) healthy aging. It is the new and future way of getting a multivitamin, and a whole lot more. Head to www.DrinkAG1.com/cressey and claim my special offer today – 10 FREE travel packs – with your first purchase. I use AG1 daily myself and highly recommend it to our athletes as well. I’d encourage you to give it a shot, too – especially with this great offer.

Podcast Feedback

If you like what you hear, we'd be thrilled if you'd consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us an iTunes review. You can do so HERE.

And, we welcome your suggestions for future guests and questions. Just email elitebaseballpodcast@gmail.com.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive Instant Access to a 47-minute Presentation from Eric Cressey on Individualizing the Management of Overhead Athletes!

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 6/14/16

Here's some recommended strength and conditioning reading/viewing to get your Tuesday started off on the right foot:

How Neural Tension Influences Hamstrings Flexibility - This Mike Reinold video is an excerpt from our new resource, Functional Stability Training: Optimizing Movement. It's on sale for $30 off through the end of the week.

Why Physical Therapists are Movement System Experts? - I thought this was an excellent article from my good friend and colleague, Eric Schoenberg. I collaborate with Eric on a weekly basis with various rehab cases and he's an outstanding therapist and even better friend.

Top Tweet of the Week:

lomoquote

Top Instagram Post of the Week: (this week's come from the @CresseySportsPerformance account):

 

Another exciting 1st Year Player Draft in the books. Odds are looking pretty good that we break into triple digits in '17. #cspfamily #mlbdraft

A photo posted by Cressey Sports Performance (@cresseysportsperformance) on

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Fitness Professionals: 5 Tips for Marketing to Physical Therapists

In light of my post earlier this week on how essential it is for fitness professionals to understand corrective exercise, I received an outstanding guest blog submission from physical therapist Ann Wendel that will serve as an excellent follow-up. As Eric alluded to in his recent post, it takes time and energy to build a network of providers in your area. Many fitness professionals are eager to market their services to physical therapists, but they may not know how to get started. Often, their attempts at marketing are ineffective and frustrating. I have worked in the health care industry for 20 years, starting my career as an ATC working with high school, college and professional athletes, and then as a PT/ATC in a variety of settings. Over the years, I have seen both good and bad efforts at marketing by local trainers. In this article, I will give you five pointers to help you market your expertise to the health care community.

1. Build the relationship: It takes time to build trust. You don’t want to come off like a used car salesman. If you rush into the PT clinic expecting to talk with one of the therapists and hand out your materials, you are probably wasting your time. When I worked in a busy orthopedic outpatient clinic, I saw a patient every 30 minutes for 8 hours straight, and I didn’t have the time to even come up to the front desk to meet the trainers who stopped by. Leaving your information without making a personal connection is futile. Call ahead to schedule a time to meet with the therapist. Then arrive on time and be prepared to present your business and explain why we should refer to you over others in your field. Offer us the ability to come to your studio/gym and observe you working with clients, or offer us a complimentary consultation so we can see how you work with a new client from start to finish. I have a policy of never referring to anyone (massage therapist, trainer, physician, etc.) unless I have personally worked with that person and been happy with their services. It’s our reputation on the line when we make a referral.

In 20 years of practice I have only had one trainer offer me a complimentary session to see how he worked. I refer patients to him.

2. Dress the part: When you go to meet with physical therapists or physicians, dress the part. You are entering a professional medical setting. What may be appropriate clothing for your gym may not be considered professional in a clinic. You don’t have to wear a suit; but, take a shower, put on clean, freshly ironed clothes, wear nice shoes, have clean fingernails. I’m being serious! Don’t show up to talk business in your sweats. We want to see that you are a professional and we want to be sure that the patients we are going to refer to you will be impressed by your appearance. Have your marketing materials ready to present, have business cards, have a website; we are going to want to check you out and so will our patients. And, if you participate in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and have them linked to your professional website, make sure you are representing yourself as a professional. The last thing we want is to refer our 70 year old neighbor to you, and have them see half naked gym/beach/Spring Break pictures and talk of booty calls on your website.

3. Speak the lingo: We want to know that you are going to keep our patients safe. Know your anatomy, know the names of major surgeries and injuries, know about autoimmune diseases, have a basic knowledge of neurological problems such as stroke, MS, and Guillain-Barre. If we are going to refer post-rehab patients to you, we want to know that you understand the issue and know how to help the client regain strength safely. If you don’t have good knowledge of these issues, ask questions, do research, go to continuing education courses that cover post-rehab, ask to come in and observe what we are doing with patients of the same diagnosis. If you have already established the relationship with the therapist, it is easier to ask questions.

4. Have a desire to collaborate: Realize that physical therapists have gone through (at minimum) 7 years of schooling to get their degree. We have also done continuing education and post graduate certification courses. We don’t know everything, but we did learn a thing or two. I have had trainers come in to meet with me before who want to impress upon me how much they know, and they come off as so arrogant and unprofessional that I throw their cards away as soon as they leave. Come in ready to partner with us in treating the client. Share your knowledge in a non-aggressive manner.

Most of us are looking for the right person to whom we can refer clients, and we are more likely to refer them to someone with whom we feel we can easily share information.

5. Refer to physical therapy when appropriate: If the client starts to have a return of symptoms after discharge from physical therapy, worsening of symptoms or new symptoms refer them to a therapist for an evaluation. Know when it is time to bring in another set of eyes or hands to assess the client. Sometimes the patient is more appropriate for therapy for a while before they are ready to come back to you for post-rehab. Don’t worry, if you are good and the patient has developed a good relationship with you, they will be back. If you have developed a good relationship with a therapist, patients can easily transition between the two of you as appropriate for their condition. As healthcare continues to change, insurance reimbursement continues to decline and patients are limited to a certain number of physical therapy visits, we are going to need to develop a good network of trainers and fitness professionals. Start thinking about how you can make some small changes to make yourself more marketable than every other Joe out there. If you are taking the time to read this blog, you are clearly interested in becoming better at what you do. Understanding what therapists are looking for puts you ahead of everyone else already. Showing up to meet with a therapist looking professional, talking in a way that is non-aggressive while showing us that you do know what you are talking about, and having quality marketing materials makes you the perfect person to hand our patients off to for continued care. About the Author Ann Wendel holds a B.S. in P.E. Studies with a concentration in Athletic Training from the University of Delaware, and a Masters in Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Based in Alexandria, VA, she is a Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC) licensed in Virginia, a Licensed Physical Therapist, and a Certified Myofascial Trigger Point Therapist (CMTPT).  For more information, please visit Ann’s site, Prana Physical Therapy. Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
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Stuff You Should Read: 1/14/09

This is a random post, but it came about in light of our recent switch to a new hosting company, plus the reorganization of the site.  In this drawn-out, mind-numbing, baldness-inducing process, I came to realize that a lot of my better writing has slipped into an internet black hole - or at the very least, the EricCressey.com archives.  So, with that in mind, over the next few weeks, I'm going to reincarnate some of my old material. Waiting to Reach Threshold Back Squats and Overhead Throwers The Best Thing I've Seen All Year And, if you're looking for sites that I visit nearly every day, I'll be posting some recommendations, too.  Today, though, I want to give you a heads-up on a great audio series - Sports Rehab to Sports Performance - that Joe Heiler has pulled together.  I'll be interviewed, as will Mike Boyle, Gray Cook, Kyle Kiesel, Stuart McGill, Phil Plisky, Brett Jones, and Charlie Weingroff.   The entire interview series is COMPLETELY FREE, and you can get more information HERE. I'll follow this up with future installments.
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5 Reasons to Get Excited

5 Reasons to Get Excited Reason #1: If you’re a fitness professional, the simple fact that you are reading this newsletter puts you ahead of most of your peers. A few weekends ago, Mike Robertson and I went to a seminar where – out of about 175 folks in attendance – the two of us were probably the only non-physical therapists. Truth be told, the seminar organizers didn’t mandate that attendees be PTs – and they haven’t in the 25+ years that they’ve been putting on great events like this. During the talk, one of the presenters remarked (and yes, this is a quote – and it was directed to all the physical therapists in the audience) “there is absolutely no reason for any of you to ever refer out to a fitness trainer. You can do everything they do.” You’d think that Mike and I – as possible the closest things to trainers in the audience – would have gotten a little miffed on behalf of our profession. Truthfully, though – almost as if we shared some sixth sense – we looked at one another, shrugged, and nodded in agreement with him. As a gross generalization, it’s the truth: there are a lot of instances where people would be better off training on their own post-rehab than they would be with a trainer, as a large percentage of trainers are grossly misinformed. We have seen some crazy stuff (I elaborated on a great example HERE). Need proof? The title of the seminar was "A Unique Approach to the Shoulder, Knee, and Spine." I’m pretty sure that trainers deal with shoulders, knees, and spines every day – just like physical therapists. And, I can guarantee that there were more personal trainers with 100 miles of this event than there were physical therapists – yet there wasn’t a single personal trainer in attendance. Then, let’s put it in dollars and cents. If you go to salary.com and compare the median annual benefits, 401K, and salary package total, here’s what you see: Physical Therapist:$97,373 Personal Trainer: $73,692 Fitness Trainer: $55,262 Think about it this way: if you were a physical therapist, would you refer out to someone if you weren’t confident in their abilities to bridge the gap with the work you’d done? If they screw up a post-rehab patient, it reflects back on you and makes you look bad in a doctor’s eyes – and that’s a doctor you’re probably trying to win over – sometimes with expensive marketing pitches! It’s a “safer” play to simply not refer out to a personal trainer, as you can assume that they make less than you, have less education, and don’t understand what you do (as evidenced by seminar attendance like this; you don’t interact with them at all). We know that this isn’t always the case; there are certainly a lot of people out there who break from this stereotype. Still, if you are a personal trainer, it’s to your advantage to get as smart as you possibly can with respect to getting/keeping people healthy – and you should pat yourself on the back for reading newsletters like this. And, to take it a step further, you should work to cultivate good relationships with physical therapists and doctors; I know that it has been a huge part of our success at Cressey Performance. It’s been a goal of mine in my writing and product creation (particularly Building the Efficient Athlete) to do more education for personal trainers and strength coaches. This leads me to… Reason #2: It looks like we’re going to offer mentorships on a limited basis at Cressey Performance. Last week alone, I had three different people (each of whom stopped by to check out our facility for a single-day) tell me that Cressey Performance needs to get with the program and offer mentorships. To be honest, it's something I've been pondering for the past month or so, and we're really thinking about putting something special together. Itt would be tight-knit: no more than 6-8 attendees at a time. If you want to learn about functional anatomy, training folks around injuries, preventing injuries, managing overhead throwing athletes, or a host of other topics, it’ll be a good fit for you. Plan on training hard while you’re in town, too; we don’t coddle people. If you'd be interested in something like this, drop us an email at cresseyperformance@gmail.com and let us know. Our first offering will likely be January of 2009. Reason #3: I had a new article published at T-Nation last week; check it out: 22 More Random Thoughts Reason #4: A Free Research Review Sampler The Research Review Service is an online, subscription-based service for exercise specialists and manual therapists looking to stay current on emerging scientific literature. Each week, these folks review and contextualize a newly published, peer-reviewed article in the area of chiropractic, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, sports injuries, acupuncture, or exercise sciences. All reviews (now over 160 of them) are posted in the growing Research Review Service online database, which is fully keyword searchable. This week, Dr. Shawn Thistle, founder and president, has made a sample available at no charge to our readers. You can download it HERE. If you like it and want more information, visit www.researchreviewservice.com, or email Dr. Thistle at shawn@researchreviewservice.com. Enjoy! Reason #5: New Blog Content Maximum Strength and Interval Training Intermittent Fasting: New Diet Solution or Passing Fad? Random Friday Thoughts All the Best, EC
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10 Mistakes Coaches Make

It's often been said that program design is an art more than it is a science. While I don't completely agree with this assertion, I think we can all agree that some "artists" are a lot better than others. In this article, I'll discuss why some strength and conditioning coaches really do deserve to be "starving artists" — or at least employed in some other field. Continue Reading...
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