Author: Zachary Cohen

Dr. Zac began his career working in professional sports. He noticed a large discrepancy between the quality of care that elite athletes receive when compared to the normal active public. This inspired him to create Cohen Health and Performance, a place that treats everyone as if they are a professional athlete! He graduated summa cum laude from Northeastern University in 2011 with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy, and also became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). While at Northeastern he worked as a Physical Therapy Graduate Assistant for the New England Patriots, and served as a strength and conditioning coach for Northeastern University athletics. Prior to moving to Maryland, Zac was a Performance Physical Therapist with EXOS (formerly known as Athletes' Performance) in Dallas, TX where he treated and trained the world's most gifted athletes from throughout the NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS, and various Olympic teams.

Tight muscles? Stretching isn’t the answer

“This shoulder is tight.” “My hip flexors are tight, and I need to stretch them.”

These are common descriptions of symptoms that are reported in physical therapy.

This isn’t wrong. Who are we to argue with how you feel? It wouldn’t be very kind of a physical therapist to discredit that.

But we often find that these feelings result in misunderstanding how to solve them.

Feelings of “tightness” often occur to protect areas vulnerable to injury. If an area of the body is unstable, the nervous system will create stiffness in the surrounding tissues to protect it. For example, the hamstrings attach to the pelvis. They may feel tight for someone with low back pain as these muscles stiffen to provide more stability to the pelvis.

Stretching the hamstrings would not solve the issue. This individual must discover how to protect their back by learning the stack (find out how to do that here) and training the muscles of the trunk accordingly. Once this is achieved, the hamstrings can finally relax.

This is just one of the many ways that a muscle may feel tight. There are many different reasons that you may feel tight, however, the solution rarely is to stretch it!

If you are experiencing tight, uncomfortable muscles, it is time to discover the underlying cause. Contact us now to schedule your evaluation and learn how you can finally fix those tight muscles!

What I wish about training as a high school athlete

This week we have a special guest post from Dr. Samuel Kinney. Dr. Kinney is a performance physical therapist in our McLean location. In addition to being an amazing physical therapist and strength coach, Sam was a successful collegiate soccer player. Learn more about Dr. Sam here.

“Lifting weights will stunt your growth.” “Squatting heavy is the key to training.”

The advice that I received as a high school athlete was all over the place and as a physical therapist, I now roll my eyes.

I wanted to impress my high school coaches and be the best athlete that I could be, but weight training confused me, and I didn’t know where to start.

Weight training in high school often felt like a competition among my teammates.

I placed a large emphasis placed on how much weight was on the bar. This was a result of encouragement from my team and my internal motivation to lift the most weight I could.

There wasn’t much thought put into our weight training program besides that. I eventually had a back injury while attempting to power clean more weight than I was ready for.

Fortunately, I went to physical therapy, which sparked my interest in the sports physical therapy profession. Unfortunately, I had to take time off from the gym and lost a lot of the progress that I had worked so hard for. While back injuries are impossible to prevent, had I known what I know now, I could have greatly reduced my risk of having one.

Training for your sport off the court or field is an essential part of developing strength, speed, and overall athleticism. A more scientific approach to training helps you excel at your sport and keeps you in the game by reducing your risk of injury. But knowing where to start and what to do in the weight room is one of the greatest challenges for a young athlete.

If the weight being lifted is causing you to struggle to maintain form and you are unsure that you can control the weight, it is too much. The advice that I would give to my high school self would be to forget about how much weight is on the bar and instead focus on how well I can control the weight through the full range of motion of the lift. It is more important to progressively increase the weight on the bar over time rather than in one weight training session.

If you are a high school athlete or the parent of one, Dr. Sam Kinney is currently offering free performance assessments as part of our rising-star training program.

This assessment will show you and your athlete the secret to helping them avoid injury and take their performance to the next level.

Need for speed: how young athletes get faster

As my old high school football coach used to say… Speed kills.

Even in physical sports like football, faster players usually have an advantage over bigger competition.

Speed training can be (and should be!) incorporated into an athlete’s workout routine and is an important part of the return to sport process in physical therapy. Whether your athlete is working to be the fastest on the field, track, or court, there are three key essentials to consider when trying to increase speed:

Learn and practice the basics

Just like any other sport, there is a technique to sprinting. You can do a few basic drills to practice sprint mechanics and emphasize proper foot strike, forward knee drive, and core activation for a fast and efficient stride. Marching, skipping, and high-knee run drills encourage this technique:

Strength training! Quads, hamstrings, calves, core

Running fast requires more than moving limbs quickly to be successful. Strength is essential to running to create power, endurance and prevent injury. While athletes use virtually all their muscles to run at top speeds, some main movers for sprinting include the hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, calves, and core. Compound lifts and single leg strength exercises targeting these muscle groups are a great way to make an athlete’s stride stronger:

Practice accelerations and sprinting

Speed training can be broken down into parts, starting with the initial acceleration. There are a few drills to help decrease the time it takes you to get from the start to full speed:

An athlete can progress into repeated sprint efforts. Some common sprint workouts include:

Flying 10s: Build speed for 20-30 yards, sprint for 10 yards, slow down for 20-30 yards
10×10: Practice accelerating for 10 yards, then slowing down as fast as you can. Repeat 10 times.

Are you an athlete or the parent of a high school athlete working to be a step faster than the competition?

Here is your solution.

We are in the midst of summer, but it’s not too late to participate in our summer rising-start training program. In this program, your athlete will receive a personal performance assessment and a custom-designed speed program that our team will coach them through.

If you dream of leaving your competition in the dust, contact us to learn more and sign up!

3 training mistakes made by young athletes

After opening our new facility in McLean in December, I jumped back into treating sports physical therapy patients.

Our busiest time was in the afternoon when we saw high school athletes.

Many of these young athletes were training independently in the weight room, and I needed them to change their approach for physical therapy to be successful.

While each athlete needed to change something different, there were three mistakes that I found many were making.

Overtraining

Oh, to be young. Many high school athletes feel invincible and, as a result, push themselves too hard. More is only sometimes better, especially when they are playing on several different teams simultaneously with a demanding school schedule. Constantly pushing the limits causes poor technique in the weight room and increased risk of injury. A more thoughtful approach to strength and performance training will provide the opposite result and reduce injury risk!

Ignoring the basics

Understandably, many young athletes want to focus on the exciting stuff. Lifting heavy weights is exciting and competitive. But improving mobility and foundational movement skills. Not so much.

Building strength on a foundation of poor mobility and movement skills is a recipe for injury.

Can your athlete touch their toes without bending their knees or perform a deep bodyweight squat without falling over? How about a pushup without their chest rising before their trunk?

Below are a couple of exercises we use to address these problems before adding heavy weights.

Lateral step down

Core pushup

Lack of Individualization

Many high school athletes follow generic training programs that don’t consider their individual needs, strengths, and weaknesses. While this works for some, an athlete recovering from an injury is unique and needs a training program tailored to their specific goals and abilities.

If you have an athlete motivated to make the most of their ability, they could be falling for many of the same mistakes.

This program may be all your athlete needs to avoid these common mistakes and take their performance to another level!

CHP Spotlight Interview with Dr. Rajeev Pandarinath

Many of us will eventually need joint replacement surgery. Why is it better to start with physical therapy and delay this surgery whenever possible?

ACL tears are one of the most common knee injuries among weekend warriors and high school athletes. How does Dr. Pandarinath change his approach in one situation versus the other? Does a high school athlete require a unique approach for the post-operative, sports physical therapy process?

Why do some rotator cuff tears require immediate surgery?

I recently interviewed Dr. Rajeev Pandarinath to tackle these questions and more in the latest edition of the CHP Spotlight Interview series. Dr. Pandarinath is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in arthroscopic procedures of the shoulder, knee, and hip.

The mission of the CHP Spotlight Interview Series is to share information with you from local experts in the fields of sports medicine, physical therapy, personal training, and sports performance. Now, more than ever, a seemingly infinite amount of information is available, and finding credible information is challenging. But we have good news. We are here to help you find the best information about physical therapy, personal training, and sports medicine from experts in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, DC, McLean, and Northern Virginia.

If you or someone you love has had a shoulder, hip, or knee injury, don’t miss this interview!

To learn more about Dr. Pandarinath, click here and check out our interview below!

3 exercises athletes must master before college

During physical therapy school at Northeastern University, I volunteered as an assistant strength and conditioning coach with varsity athletics.

Summer was the most exciting time as first-year student-athletes came to campus to begin their team’s strength and conditioning program.

Our strength and conditioning and sports physical therapy staff quickly understood which athletes had experience in the weight room and which did not.

The athletes with limited weight room experience seemed lost. They didn’t know how to perform the required exercises and were notably weaker than their teammates.

Their coaches quickly learned about this, putting them at a disadvantage compared to their teammates working in the weight room before attending college.

Here are three exercises to help your athlete gain an advantage over their teammates.

Deadlift

Core pushup

Lateral stepdown

Does your athlete dream of playing a sport in college? Are they looking to get ahead of their competition?

If so, don’t miss this opportunity to join our rising-star summer performance program. In this program, your athlete will be coached through a customized program that will transform them into a stronger, faster, and more explosive athlete. Contact us to learn more!