Welcome Dr. Jonathan Hartman!

Hello, my name is Dr. Jonathan Hartman, contributing editor of sports health education for PhysioU.

This year I will be focusing on evidence-based sport specific training and rehabilitation for the higher level athlete. I wanted to introduce myself and talk to you about how I will be doing this for this pt population.

I am a licensed PT OCS CSCS, and I have completed my postdoctoral orthopaedic residency and sports orthopaedic fellowship at Kaiser West LA. This coming year I will be starting another year-long postdoctoral fellowship focused on spine rehabilitation. I played lacrosse in college where I had many injuries, from there I started to intern as an athletic trainer for the three years where I was focusing on rugby, Mens/Womens soccer. There are many ways in which I think current concepts about training and rehabilitation for the athlete can be improved using evidence-based practice and that will be my goal with these articles. My main goal is to provide current, reliable, evidence-based information on topics related to training form, athletic injury prevention/rehabilitation, and patient education. This forum will be a great opportunity to reach a larger audience and spread the evidence-based knowledge, tips, and tricks I have gained in my practice thus far. Physio U is at the forefront of progressing our practice and developing a new easily accessible standard of evidence-based care.  Hopefully, my articles will allow fact and fiction to be demystified, and reliable information can be spread throughout the Athletic community. I hope that you comment and feel free to contact us with any topics you may like to see in the future, again my name is Dr. Jonathan Hartman and I hope you're as excited as I am to really dive into these topics this year with me.

Running Mechanics: The Introduction

Photo Credit: New Basin Blues

Have you have any patients come in asking about running mechanics and how they could improve their gait? Or talk about running and discuss repetitive injuries, and you're thinking to yourself, it may be their gait.  This articles introduces the closes thing to a "standard" when it comes to running gait. 

Much like walking, everyones running gait pattern is unique and slightly different. Therefore, due to the variations from person to person, it has become difficult to standardize what “normal” running should look like.  The purpose of this post is to introduce basic running mechanics so that we can further analyze gait in the next post.

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Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome: What Is it?

Medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) also commonly knows as “shin splints” and as medial tibial traction periostisis is a very common overuse injury.  With MTSS the athlete presents with pain  along middle or lower half of the posteriormedial border of the tibia during loading activities such as running, walking, and jumping (2,3,4). Shin splints make up 60% of all lower leg injuries in all athletes,  4% to 20% in military personnel,  and 9.5% specifically to runners (5).  Garnock et al, explained that MTSS recovery times can range anywhere from 4 weeks up until 18 weeks with a reoccurrence rate of 20-30x in those individuals who with a history of MTSS compared to those without a history (4).

Unfortunately, for those athletes experiencing this injury ceasing training to is recommended especially if their pain surpasses a level 4 on a 10 point pains scale (5). For many years now, researchers and clinicians have attempted to find a definitive cause to MTSS as well as the best course of treatment but have fallen short.

Continue reading this post to find out what shin splints are, and what  the top risk factors 

Part II: Running and Low Back Pain- Exercises

In part 1 we discussed what researchers have found to be the top risk factors to low back pain. Quick summary: poor trunk stability results from muscle imbalances which excessively challenge the surrounding muscles and structures that support us.  

When it comes to explaining low back pain, it helps to break the anatomy down in 3 basic areas. All of these 3 components marinate together in order to provide us with all the stability necessary to function well. 

This post takes it a further step and illustrates some exercise that your patients can implement to help themselves prevent low back pain or work towards making themselves stronger to reduce back pain. 

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Part I: Running and Low Back Pain- Risk Factors

For runners, low back pain is a common problem. According to Concong et al, 13.6% of recreational runners in the southern United States report experiencing back pain and about 85-90% of the general population have experienced low back pain at some point in their life.

Many of your athletic patients will come in inquiring as to why they are experiencing back pain.

This Part I blog article can better explain to your patients the top 4 risk factors that contribute to back pain in your athletes. 

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