Larson Sports & Orthopedics

Forgot to post about this back in June, but I got the chance to be a speaker at Becker’s Sports, Spine, and Surgery Center meeting in Chicago. My first conference gig! It was a panel discussion on cool new stuff in sports medicine like biologic healing enhancement, new surgeries, wearable tech, AI, etc. (And I even got to sneak out to The Galloping Ghost for an evening🤩)

Beautiful day to be on the sidelines at a Shenandoah football game!

Complex movements are hard to perform well. They require activation of both major movers and accessory muscles in precise sequences when performed correctly. But our bodies are lazy. They love to take shortcuts and easily fall into bad movement patterns. And our bodies have natural differences between antagonistic sets of muscles. That leads to imbalances in strength around our joints and the potential for injury and instability. But we can solve that with a proper shoulder warmup.

Save Your Shoulder With These Simple Warmup Exercises These 15 exercises will help you put together a simple yet effective shoulder warmup or an extended shoulder accessory program.

Hey everybody, it's been a minute since our last post. We've had about a year's worth of surgery to help people catch up on and it doesn't leave much time for blogging. Thanks for sticking with me!

I've been researching a few technique posts to bring you, and we are gonna start with one about foot position during the squat. So many people think there is only one right way to squat, and that's just not the case!

Too often, we look at the averages from research studies and assume that's the optimum. But in reality, everyone's body is different "perfect" exists on a spectrum as wide as our body types.

So take a look at this week's article to find out if foot placement or rotation actually matter, and how you can adjust your squat to focus on different muscles.

Foot Position and Squats: Stop worrying about angle and focus on placement Foot rotation doesn't have much effect on squat mechanics. But foot placement does! Learn the difference in this article.

Blood flow restriction training is becoming a much more popular method of both training and physical therapy. It provides a great way to build muscle with light weights for people with bad backs, arthritic knees, or limited time to exercise.

But people still have a lot of questions about this new training method. So I've compiled this FAQ to help answer your most common questions!

Answering The Most Common Questions About BFR Training BFR training is popular in both physical therapy and personal training. In this article, Dr. Larson answers some of your most common questions.

One of my favorite topics is busting fitness myths. Especially when those myths include recommendations against exercise. Many doctors tell their patients that the risks of exercise outweigh the benefits. But the research shows that - when done right - exercise improves almost every medical condition.

And Parkinson's is no exception. This week, we're sending out a guest post by Molly Donelan. Molly leads classes each week at Sportrock where she teaches people with Parkinson's disease how to climb for fun, exercise, and disease management.

This unconventional program has made a profound difference in the lives of her climbing group - teaching them not just to climb, but to soar!

Learning to Soar - How Climbing Can Help People With Parkinson's Climbing is a great exercise that is both safe and effective at improving function and decreasing symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.

So, you’re at the gym doing your regular workout, but something doesn't feel right. Your hip seems to get tighter every time you stand up from your squat.

And then suddenly, SNAP! Something deep in your hip clunks and scares you. You’re pretty sure you just dislocated your hip!

But instead of the pain you were expecting... it actually feels better. Sounds like you’ve got snapping hip syndrome!

Don't worry! We'll tell you what tendon is usually responsible for this noise - and how to fix it!

Top Causes of Hip Snapping and How To Fix it - Larson Sports Ortho Snapping and clunking in your hip is usually caused by tight tendons and it can often be fixed with simple stretches.

Bodybuilders have talked about the mind-muscle connection for a while now. And of course, if one person has an opinion on training, you’ll have another person that calls it a myth. And if there is one thing I love to do, it’s busting fitness myths!

But what if it’s more than just a bro-science myth? We know that there is a strong connection between your mental and physical health. So why not the mental and physical aspects of training?

Can the same sort of mind-body connection apply to other aspects of your training? Can your mindset while lifting weights improve your gains?

Is The Mind-Muscle Connection Real? The mind-muscle connection can grow muscle at nearly double the normal rate, for certain muscles at particular levels of resistance.

This article is one of our most popular, having been read by over 20,000 people! But I'm bringing it back, updated and improved, because I know there are way more people that are looking for this information.

Big thanks go to co-authors Dr. Ryan Geringer and Dr. Dax Steele for their knowledge and collaboration on this article.

And please, remember to share it or tag someone in the comments if you think it will help them!

https://larsonsportsortho.com/exercise-after-hip-or-knee-replacement/

🤔Why are they saying that the vaccine prevents COVID-19 but may not prevent infection with the coronavirus?🤔

This was a DM from a friend and I realized many people probably had the same question! So I thought I’d share the answer I sent them. 🤓

At this point, we have enough data to know that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines do a good job of preventing severe COVID-19 disease, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. 🦠

Think of it as “we know the vaccine prevents you from having symptoms of infection, but we don’t know if it actually stops you from getting infected and passing it on”.

But these early studies did not test vaccinated people for the presence of the virus. They only tested people who developed symptoms of COVID-19 after given the vaccine (or placebo.) That means that people in the study could have been asymptomatic carriers of the SARS-CoV-2 virus without knowing it. Just like kids rarely get sick from the virus but can still carry it and spread it to adults, who then get sick. 🤧

The vaccine might make you more like those kids: COVID Trojan horses. You may still be able to carry the disease and infect your grandmother, even if you don’t have symptoms. In fact, one of the most common ways to spread COVID-19 now is during the two days before you develop symptoms. During those 48 hours, you may not have any reason to think you are infected, but can still be highly contagious. (That’s why you should wear a mask 😷)

Do All Vaccines Work Like This?🙋🏼‍♂️

No, many vaccines prevent both infection and disease. But some simply prevent the symptoms of the disease without eliminating infection.

One example from another disease is the shingles vaccine. Shingles is caused by the same virus as chicken pox, varicella zoster. After you get chicken pox, the zoster virus can infect your nerve cells and just hang out there forever, only rarely showing symptoms of shingles. The shingles vaccine won’t cure you from having zoster virus in your nerve cells. But it can prevent it from getting uppity and causing the symptoms of shingles.

Why Don’t We Know If The Vaccines Prevent Infection?

Because that sort of thing is usually worked out with studies and testing BEFORE the vaccine is released. But in order to contain this pandemic as quickly as possible, we aren’t going through the years of further study usually required to answer these kinds of questions.

You are literally going to be living through the scientific process of testing this vaccine. The scientific process is messy, filled with unanswered question and a lot of false starts. But bear with it, and be willing to realize that what we are sure of today may be found wrong tomorrow. That’s science, folks.

BUT... we know that these vaccines have a very low risk of any serious side effects. We know that they are doing a remarkably good job of preventing severe disease and death (better than I personally ever hoped for, actually). And that’s good enough for now. The other answers will come with time.