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Applying Hip Strength Drills For Reduced Pain and Increased Flexibility

Over the last year, I have shared a lot of my thoughts related to how I have drastically changed my approaches to hip and shoulder flexibility training. The "Gymnastics, Please Stop These Stretches" series I wrote (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) were…
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Don’t Feed The Fire: Modifying Strength To Increase Flexibility

This is something I have been thinking about as I continue to treat a lot more gymnasts who come to me with injury or performance issues. I'm always trying to break down the problem to help the athlete, but also find the "spark" that created…
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Why Gymnasts Must Change How They Land

The topic of how a gymnast should land continues to be controversial for many coaches, gymnasts, and judges. I'm not the first person to bring this up, as my good friend Dr. Josh Eldridge as well as Rick McCharles have written on this up before.…
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Rehab Tips For Clinicians To Treat Gymnasts with Extension Based LBP – Part 5: Return To Training

Over the last two months I've been outlining my thought process for the rehabilitation of gymnasts with extension based lower back pain. The acute phase, sub acute phase, intermediate phase, and advanced phase of rehabilitation were Parts 1…
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Rehab Tips For Clinicians To Treat Gymnasts with Extension Based LBP – Part 4: Advanced Phase

Over a few different posts in the last month, I have been offering my thoughts behind the rehab progression of a gymnast with extension based low back pain. In Part 1 I first covered the acute phase, then in Part 2 the subacute phase, then in…
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Gymnastics, Please Stop These Stretches (Part 3)

In the first part of this article series I covered pushing passive hyper extension for the back hip of splits, then in the second part I covered skin the cats / hyper flexion stretches. Also, before you dig in more, remember you can download…
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Gymnastics, Please Stop Doing These Stretches (Part 2)

In the first part of this article, I went over why pushing hip hyperextension and back leg split flexibility stretching makes me really concerned. In this article, I want to go over two types of commonly used passive shoulder stretches I fear…
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Gymnastics, Please Stop Doing These Stretches (Part 1)

I try my best to not be on the offensive side of the coin when it comes to my writing. However, lately I have seen a ton of flexibility drills that I feel are not only dangerous, they likely are causing large performance drops in gymnasts.…
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Rehab Tips For Clinicians To Treat Gymnasts with Extension Based LBP – Part 3: Intermediate Phase

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to offer some of my thoughts around how I approach the rehabilitation program of a gymnast with extension based back pain. In part 1 I went over calming down acute hypersensitivity and addressing issues…
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From Clinic To Practice #4: Gymnast With Chronic Hamstring Injury and “Tightness”; Due To Core Control Issues

I recently evaluated an optional gymnast who was struggling in the last year with pretty intense high hamstring pain and "tightness" limiting her splits, leaps, sprinting for Yurchenko's, and inbar skills. As it turned out, I felt her hamstring…