This week we discuss knee and ankle strength demands during deceleration tasks. The biggest takeaway is that from a short acceleration, 5 meters, both knee and ankle strength were significantly correlated to deceleration performance. However, with a 10 meter accelereation, knee extension strength variables were the only ones to relate to deceleration performance. This was a great discussion about constraining environments for deceleration and isokinetic testing, to possible ankle exercises to address deceleration.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39882763/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily, these are uploaded to our YouTube channel! Check us out at https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingRehab.

In this episode, Bryan Gardner and Roy Krishnan, owner of Liquid Sports Lab in Rochester, New York, talk about a case of a D3 baseball pitcher returning to pitching after an ACL tear. Bryan talks us through his range of motion and strength data while Roy goes over his pitching biomechanical data from markerless motion capture AI!

Roy is a former data analyst and sport scientist for the Dallas Mavericks and Toronto Raptors. You can learn more about him and Liquid Sports Lab here: https://liquidsportslab.com

This week we discuss limiters for rapid force production, specifically muscle slack. This narrative review breaks down the 6 processes that happen when contracting a muscle, and focus on the areas of potential delay. Muscles that do not have any pretension must first take up slack before being able to exert force, which could increase a mechanical delay time up to 100 milliseconds. This is important because a powerful action takes less than 300 milliseconds, and the athlete that can exert force quicker is going to have better performance. The authors talk through 3 strategies to reduce muscle slack by pretensioning: a countermovement, use of external load, and agonist/antagonist co-contraction. However, co-contraction is likely the most viable strategy in most athletic contexts. Therefore, practitioners may want to cue for or constrain movement so there is co-contraction. Listen to the episode to hear some strategies we use clinically to limit muscle slack!

The abstract can be found here: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2016/10000/influence_of_muscle_slack_on_high_intensity_sport.7.aspx

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily, these are uploaded to our YouTube channel! Check us out at https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingRehab.

This week we are talking about a case of a marathon runner Mike has been working with for the past 10 months following a femoral shaft bone stress injury. He takes us through some of the testing they did and adaptations to her training program so she could run the Tokyo Marathon earlier this month!

This week we discuss use of concentric vs eccentric exercise to build muscle. Out the gate, our biggest suggestion is if you are trying to have a complete program, you really need to do a good mix of all muscle actions. And the results of this study suggest that one muscle action isn't really better than the other. It seems like the other training variables (frequency, intensity, time under tension, set-rep scheme, etc) are more related to hypertrophy than type of muscle action. But maybe if you are trying to get big in as short a time as possible, some supramaximal eccentric training can get the job done. Just don't hurt yourself.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39652733/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily, these are uploaded to our YouTube channel! Check us out at https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingRehab.

Join us as we talk all things impulse with Hector Wang. He uses a case of a high school volleyball player 7 months post-op ACLR to demonstrate all the factors that are important in expressing impulse. We had a great time with this conversation, and we hope you enjoy! If you want to learn more from Hector, check him out on Instagram @hectrainingstuff!

This week we discuss tendon stress and strain. This article was a review written by one author which was published in 2022. We found the definitions provided in the article to be particularly helpful. Strain is the change in tendon length relative to normal length, while stress is the amount of force relative to the tendon (force/CSA). These describe what is happening to a tendon. Stiffness and Young's modulus are physiologic properties of a tendon. Stiffness is a change in tendon length relative to the force applied which is dependent on cross sectional area (CSA). Young's modulus is the relationship between stress and strain, which is independent of CSA (stress/strain). This review discusses a few different articles, but one of the key points we took from this is that you can increase strain on a tendon by using heavier loads or by working at a stretched position of the joint. While this review focuses on healthy populations, this could be applied to injured populations when treating patients with tendinopathy. If the goal is to try to induce tendon strain, you could explore a variety of loading options.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36135039/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily, these are uploaded to our YouTube channel! Check us out at https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingRehab.

This is a continuation of the case from Episode 1: Isometric testing. You can find that episode on our YouTube channel.

Since IE, Pat has been utilizing CPM mode for eccentric training of knee extension to both qualitatively and quantitatively improve his patients torque production capabilities throughout challenging ranges of motion.

The graphs demonstrate the progression his patient has made across 4 treatment sessions. We do not attribute this success to this sole intervention, but believe it is a great adjunct to track qualitative force production and provides a good stimulus along the way.

Pat discusses his rationale for modifying the exercise procotol and answers questions provided by Mike and Bryan.