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.

An injury made him better

Bob was a high school lacrosse player with dreams of playing at a Division 1 college but wasn’t getting any interest.

He had the ideal size to play in college and was a good athlete. The problem is that he was coming to see us as a sports physical therapy patient for one of many injuries he had suffered over the previous two seasons.

His injury history was the reason why he wasn’t receiving interest from college coaches.

He had visited several doctors and other physical therapists but struggled to stay on the field. He grew frustrated and started to doubt if he would ever get recruited to play at a major college program.

The ankle and knee injury he presented to us had bothered him for several months. The sports physical therapy process began by assessing the range of motion, strength, and movement capabilities of the joints in his lower body. Our examination included assessing the sport-specific movements that he could perform at the time.

He had movement limitations in his ankles and hips, resulting in compensations when running and performing gym-based exercises. The movement compensations he was demonstrating also had become habits, reinforcing his movement limitations.

We helped him improve the motion in his ankles and hips while teaching him drills to retrain his body to move without compensating.

Next, we got into the gym. We helped Bob rebuild his strength, speed, and explosiveness. We quickly became more like trainers and less like physical therapists.

Bob’s high school lacrosse season started three months after we began working together. He was nervous about returning but excited to show his coaches all his improvements.

After his first practice, I got a call from Bob.

Bob’s coach pulled him aside after practice to ask what he had been doing in the off-season. He dominated his teammates in his first practice and returned stronger, faster, and more explosive from injury.

Fast forward one year, and Bob received his division one lacrosse scholarship.

If your athlete has similar dreams of playing high-level collegiate sports, contact us and join our rising-star summer performance program!

Maximizing your child’s chance of earning a college scholarship

ONE person has the final decision in determining if your athlete will receive a scholarship to play college sports. The coach.

Coaches are most concerned with keeping their jobs or earning job opportunities at more prominent programs.

If your athlete can help a college coach with either, a scholarship may be coming their way!

On the other hand, coaches hate inconsistency. When talented players cannot play consistently, a coach can’t trust that they can win consistently, and inconsistent winning equals a lack of job security.

What is the number 1 reason an athlete is unable to play? You guessed it, injury.

I remember speaking to a college football coach in Texas who told me that he would rather have a good player that is consistently healthy than a great player who is always in physical therapy and injury prone. He went on to say that he likes players who overcame an injury and stayed healthy afterward. To the coach, this indicated a strong work ethic, a resilient mindset, and commitment to the physical therapy and performance training process.

A comprehensive strength training program is best for athletes to stay healthy or overcome a lengthy injury history. Now that summer is here, this is the perfect time for your athlete to get started!

But finding the best strength training solution can be challenging. You should look for three things in your athlete’s strength training program.

Qualified and Experienced Coaches: Look for coaches with a track record of working in your athletes’ sport or discipline. They should demonstrate a strong understanding of exercise science and sport-specific training.
Individualized Program Design: A quality strength training program is tailored to the specific needs and goals of the athlete. Look for programs that start with an individualized assessment to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. The program should be designed to address your athlete’s unique characteristics.
Goal Alignment: Your athlete’s strength training program should align with their goals and sport. Look for programs that incorporate exercises, training methods, or progressions relevant to your athlete’s sport.

Are you interested in finding the best summer training program for your athlete?

If so, contact us to participate in our rising-star training assessment.

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

The Secret to Recruitment for College Sports

College coaches are most concerned with keeping their jobs or earning job opportunities at more prominent programs.

If your athlete can help a college coach with either, a scholarship may be coming their way!

What is the number 1 reason an athlete is unable to play? You guessed it, injury.

I remember speaking to a college football coach in Texas who told me that he would rather have a good player that is consistently healthy than a great player who is injury prone. He went on to say that he likes players who overcame an injury and stayed healthy afterward. To the coach, this indicated a strong work ethic and resilient mindset.

A comprehensive strength training program is best for athletes to stay healthy or overcome a lengthy injury history. This is a large component of the sports physical therapy process in Bethesda and McLean. Now that summer is here, this is the perfect time for your athlete to get started!

But finding the best strength training solution can be challenging. You should look for three things in your athlete’s strength training program.

Qualified and Experienced Coaches: Look for coaches with a track record of working in your athletes’ sport or discipline. They should demonstrate a strong understanding of exercise science and sport-specific training.
Individualized Program Design: A quality strength training program is tailored to the specific needs and goals of the athlete. Look for programs that start with an individualized assessment to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. The program should be designed to address your athlete’s unique characteristics.
Goal Alignment: Your athlete’s strength training program should align with their goals and sport. Look for programs that incorporate exercises, training methods, or progressions relevant to your athlete’s sport.

Are you interested in finding the best summer training program for your athlete? Contact us!

CHP Spotlight Interview with Dr. Jamie Grossman

What can you do to prevent common upper and lower body injuries? When is it time for you to see an orthopedic surgeon? Are there surgical procedures that can preserve the lifespan of a joint?

I sat down with Dr. Jamie Grossman to tackle these questions and more in the latest CHP Spotlight Interview series edition. Dr. Grossman is an orthopedic surgeon with OrthoVirginia specializing in the field of joint preservation. Her areas of interest include sports medicine, joint reconstruction, and hip preservation.

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. Grossman, click here and check out our interview below!

My shoulder pops. Is that bad?

I call these rice crispies. Snaps, crackles, and pops are typical in the shoulder and a concern for many physical therapy patients.

Rice crispies occur in the shoulder for many reasons. The shoulder joint has the most range of motion in the entire body. But with great mobility comes great responsibility!

The large amount of motion in the shoulder provides many ways to compensate. If the quality of shoulder movement is poor, it risks becoming unstable. Excellent movement quality is challenging in such a mobile joint, so the shoulder is commonly injured.

But before you worry too much about rice crispies in the shoulder, ask yourself if it is painful. If it is painless, it may only be a harmless joint noise known as crepitus, simply pressure released from the joint. Crepitus is what happens when you crack your knuckles.

But, if there is pain with the noise, consider seeing a physical therapist like our team here at CHP.

Movement compensations in the shoulder and repetitive use can irritate several tissues within the shoulder. One example is rotator cuff tendinitis, which is a common sports physical therapy injury in Bethesda and McLean.

Tendons are the cords that connect muscle to bone. The rotator cuff tendons can become worn down over time, much like the sole of a shoe that eventually wears apart. If left untreated, the result is a tearing of the rotator cuff tendon, resulting in increased pain and an inability to exercise or train fully. Limitations can progress further, affecting sleep, strength, and the ability to use the arm with daily activities.

The most important thing is to figure out why the pain or rice crispies started in the first place.

Small rotator cuff tears, arthritis, and joint damage is expected within the shoulder. But there is still a great deal that you can do (without surgery) to get out of pain and back to performing the activities that you love.

A great sports physical therapist will help you identify the root cause of your symptoms so that you can continue to exercise and enjoy your active lifestyle.

Contact us if you have questions about how we can help you with shoulder pain/popping and get you back to doing the activities you love.

This is why your back pain isn’t going anywhere

Let me tell you about a past physical therapy patient who saw me in our Bethesda and McLean facilities. We’ll call him John. John is a hard-working guy that had been struggling with back pain for years. It started with pain while weight training and eventually prevented him from standing for more than 20 minutes at one time. His inability to stand was a major problem because his job required him to be on his feet constantly.

He had been to doctors, physical therapists, and chiropractors. He tried foam rolling, changing his desk setup, and even those strange massage gun-looking things.

That is when he came to see me for a more “sports approach” to physical therapy.

I began our session by asking him questions about his back; I could sense that he had heard them before. But my following questions grabbed his attention.

He had not received these questions before, and I asked about his sleep habits, use of technology, and stress. These questions created our “aha moment” as we realized the following areas needed to improve if he wanted to conquer his back pain in physical therapy.

A Poor Night’s Sleep

Sleep is the best recovery tool that we have. Research has shown that sleep quality improves outcomes in chronic pain patients, especially with back pain.

We first made sure that John had a high-quality mattress. A poor-quality bed can leave your back feeling worse due to a lack of support. Most people with back pain tolerate a firmer mattress best. Be sure to test multiple mattresses and determine the best and most comfortable ones.

John’s final sleeping recommendation was simple—no more sleeping on his stomach. Sleeping on your stomach increases the compression on your lower back. Sleeping on your side or back can be extremely challenging when you are not used to it. But it will become much easier over time.

Addiction to Technology

John was spending way too much time looking at screens.

According to recent research, the average person spends about nine hours per day using electronic devices, which increases tension in several areas, like the lower back.

We started by setting realistic limits on John’s use of technology. We gave him a technology curfew of 9 pm (he couldn’t use his phone after 9 pm). Phones, iPads, and TVs contain blue light, suppressing melatonin production, a hormone essential for quality sleep.

Reduce Stress

The body is resilient, but it can only handle so much physical and emotional stress. Research indicates that people struggling with anxiety and depression are more likely to experience a few orthopedic pains, including lower back pain.

After discussing this with John, he mentioned that he had enjoyed meditation but didn’t have enough time to keep it up. Because he enjoyed meditating, I suggested he try one of the many great apps with short, 5-minute meditations.

Suppose meditation doesn’t work for you. No big deal! Search for one thing you enjoy, which reduces your stress, and implement that into your daily routine. Walking outside does that for me. Rain or shine, I ensure I get at least a couple of walks in a day.

As John worked to address these issues, we created a comprehensive physical therapy plan to help his back. Combining all these factors allowed him to recover and return to work and his active lifestyle fully.

Back pain is a complex issue, influenced by many factors. But that is a good thing because that provides many ways that experts can help. If you have back pain that won’t go away, don’t hesitate to contact us so that we can help you find solutions.