Rehab & Recovery

To gain a greater understanding of Dave's current capabilities, Dr. Rusin watches a full training session of six movements.

These are what I’d consider the biggest mistakes in letting injury dictate your ability to train.

With the discovery phase nearly complete, Dr. Rusin has identified three key areas that will be imperative for Dave moving forward — hip stability, posterior chain upper quadrant stability/thoracic spine cage mobility, and program formation.

This second article of the series discusses additional loading concepts, training considerations, and rehabilitation protocols for increasing tissue capacity while maintaining or decreasing training load.

Whereas the previous screen was intended to identify red flags, this assessment will consist of clinically-based testing to produce both a medical diagnosis and a functional movement capacity diagnosis.

There are so many layers wrapped up in recovery and getting back to competition. These are the key points that Dave had to embrace if he wanted to keep training for the next 10 years.

The initial assessment is complete and it's time for some hands-on evaluation of Dave's movement, using these seven key movements. The compensation patterns and pain indicators observed in this step will be used in the next phase of the process.

One of the most common causes of injury is accumulation of load on a tissue, tendon, or ligament that exceeds that tissue, tendon, or ligament's capacity. For optimal rehabilitation and recovery, you need to understand and manage this relationship.

In order to get to the point of actually getting better and taking rehab seriously, a lifter must be willing to shift from short-term to long-term focus. Here's what we did and how I think most rehab for strength athletes should be structured.

If you're looking for a way to restore muscle function and promote muscle growth, a trip to the massage table may be the answer.

There may be a strength discrepancy between your anterior and posterior chain, but are you sure this isn't because some muscles are stuck doing a job they weren't originally intended to do, in a position that isn't optimal?

Dave LaMartina is one of the hardest working lifters I've met, and has proven over many years that he is willing to train through just about anything. After significant injury led to him stepping off the platform, he reached out to me, and this is how he came back.