The Ask Mike Reinold Show

If you've ever programmed rotator cuff work, you've probably hit the same wall this week's listener did. You start with the classic light band or dumbbell external rotations, everything progresses nicely for a few weeks, and then it just stops. Add a couple pounds and the movement falls apart. So you assume you've maxed out what these little muscles can do and go back to maintenance mode.
Here's the question we got, and it's a good one: the infraspinatus and teres minor are small muscles, so at some point linear progression seems to stop working. Do they respond to heavier loading like three sets of eight, or is there a ceiling because of their size?
It's a smart question, and the answer starts by challenging a premise almost everyone believes. The idea that the external rotators are "tiny" muscles that can only handle light work is one of the most persistent myths in shoulder training, and it quietly shapes how most people program the cuff for years. Once you see the actual anatomy and understand what these muscles are really built to do in a throwing athlete, the whole approach to loading them changes.
So can you lift heavy for the rotator cuff? Should a performance athlete be doing sets of eight with real weight? And if linear progression has stalled, what's the variable you should reach for before you just pile on more load? We get into the exact framework on this week's episode, including why your progress probably stopped and the order we'd progress these muscles to break the plateau. Give it a listen.
To see full show notes and more, head to: https://mikereinold.com/how-to-progressively-load-the-rotator-cuff/ 

----------
Want to learn a complete system to help people restore, optimize, and enhance their performance?
Enrollment in my Champion Performance Specialist program is opening soon.   We only open the doors to new cohorts twice per year.  Click here to learn how to join the pre-sale VIP list to save $300 and enroll a week early to secure your spot.
Click Here to View My Online Courses
Want to learn more from me? I have a variety of online courses on my website!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
_____
Want to learn more?  Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me:  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Youtube

If you treat young athletes, you have seen this note a hundred times. A 14-year-old gets referred for low back pain, and somewhere in the orthopedic report is the phrase "hamstring tightness," presented as if it settles the question. Tight hamstrings, tilted pelvis, cranky back. Case closed. Go stretch.
It's a tidy story. It's also the kind of story that survives because it sounds mechanical and nobody stops to check it. And when you actually look at what the research says, the picture gets a lot more complicated in a way that should change how you evaluate these kids.
Start with the obvious problem. Almost every adolescent in the middle of a growth spurt has tight hamstrings. Bones outpace soft tissue, flexibility drops, and it happens to the kids with back pain and the kids without it. So if you're going to call it a cause, you have to explain why the vast majority of tight-hamstring teenagers walk around perfectly fine. Then there's the direction of the arrow. Does the tightness create the back pain, or does the back pain create the tightness?
That second question is where this gets clinically important. Because there is one specific scenario in adolescent back pain where hamstring tightness matters enormously, and in that scenario it is not something you stretch. It's something you recognize, and it should send you looking somewhere else entirely. Miss it and you can spend six weeks on a mobility program while the actual problem gets worse.
On this week's episode of the Ask Mike Reinold Show, we get into what hamstring tightness in a young athlete is actually telling you, how to tell the difference between short tissue, neural tension, and protective guarding, and the specific findings that should make you stop treating and start imaging. Give it a listen.
To see full show notes and more, head to: https://mikereinold.com/is-hamstring-tightness-correlated-to-low-back-pain-in-young-athletes/

----------
Want to learn a complete system to help people restore, optimize, and enhance their performance?
Enrollment in my Champion Performance Specialist program is opening soon.   We only open the doors to new cohorts twice per year.  Click here to learn how to join the pre-sale VIP list to save $300 and enroll a week early to secure your spot.
Click Here to View My Online Courses
Want to learn more from me? I have a variety of online courses on my website!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
_____
Want to learn more?  Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me:  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Youtube

Hamstring strains are incredibly frustrating. You get an athlete feeling great, they go for a sprint, and the muscle grabs again. We have all been there. It is the most common time-loss injury we see in running and field sports.
For years, sports medicine professionals have debated whether biologics actually speed up recovery. Some studies show great results. Other studies suggest they are a waste of money. The conflicting data makes it hard to give our athletes a straight answer when they ask if an injection will get them back on the field faster.
A recent randomized controlled trial finally standardizes the protocol to give us better clarity. The researchers looked specifically at grade 2 tears and used ultrasound-guided injections alongside a traditional rehabilitation program. The results completely change how we should view biological adjuncts in muscle rehab.
Listen to this week's podcast episode to hear a full breakdown of the study. We discuss exactly how much time these injections can shave off a recovery timeline and how you can apply these findings to the athletes you treat.
To see full show notes and more, head to: https://mikereinold.com/does-prp-actually-work-for-hamstring-strains/

----------
Want to learn a complete system to help people restore, optimize, and enhance their performance?
Enrollment in my Champion Performance Specialist program is opening soon.   We only open the doors to new cohorts twice per year.  Click here to learn how to join the pre-sale VIP list to save $300 and enroll a week early to secure your spot.
Click Here to View My Online Courses
Want to learn more from me? I have a variety of online courses on my website!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
_____
Want to learn more?  Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me:  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Youtube

Pitchers are constantly looking for the best way to recover after a long outing. Walk into any training room, and you will hear the hum of massage guns and see guys strapped to ice machines. We're seeing newer things too, like ESTIM machines and even BFR after an outing. We know pitching causes microtrauma and neuromuscular fatigue. The debate over how to properly manage that fatigue never seems to stop.
A recent study finally put percussive massage and traditional ice therapy head to head. Researchers had collegiate pitchers throw 75 pitches and then gave them either a targeted massage gun session or 15 minutes of isolated icing. They tracked exactly what happened to the shoulder over the next 48 hours.
The results might force you to change how you handle your athletes post-game. One of these popular methods actually restored shoulder external rotation strength and proprioception. The other completely fell flat after two days. Check out this week's podcast episode to hear my breakdown of the data and find out exactly what you should be doing to keep your pitchers healthy and performing at their best.
To see full show notes and more, head to: https://mikereinold.com/does-icing-your-shoulder-still-work-for-baseball-pitchers/ 

----------
Want to learn a complete system to help people restore, optimize, and enhance their performance?
Enrollment in my Champion Performance Specialist program is opening soon.   We only open the doors to new cohorts twice per year.  Click here to learn how to join the pre-sale VIP list to save $300 and enroll a week early to secure your spot.
Click Here to View My Online Courses
Want to learn more from me? I have a variety of online courses on my website!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
_____
Want to learn more?  Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me:  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Youtube

Every sports physical therapist remembers the first time they handed a young, anxious athlete an MRI report filled with terms like "partial-thickness tear," "labral fraying," or "degenerative changes." It is a defining moment in a clinician's career. Instantly, the psychological landscape of the rehab process shifts. The athlete, who might only have mild, intermittent symptoms, suddenly views their joint as a ticking time bomb. As a clinician, it is incredibly easy to let that piece of paper dictate your entire treatment plan, leading to over-protection and a fear-avoidant rehab environment.
The reality of dealing with overhead athletes—especially baseball pitchers—is that structural abnormalities on an image are often just the cost of doing business. If you scan enough high-level shoulders, you are going to find fraying and partial tears in completely asymptomatic arms. The real skill lies in balancing those structural findings with the actual human being sitting on your treatment table. How do you maintain clinical objectivity when the scan says one thing but your manual muscle testing and special tests say another?
On this episode of the podcast, we answer a great question from a listener struggling to navigate this exact scenario with a collegiate pitcher. We discuss how to educate a freaked-out athlete, when to respect the structural pathology, and how to ensure you are treating the functional deficits rather than just chasing a clean image. Check out this week’s episode for our full breakdown and clinical pearls on mastering the physical exam.
To see full show notes and more, head to: https://mikereinold.com/stop-treating-the-mri-and-start-treating-the-athlete/

----------
Want to learn a complete system to help people restore, optimize, and enhance their performance?
Enrollment in my Champion Performance Specialist program is opening soon.   We only open the doors to new cohorts twice per year.  Click here to learn how to join the pre-sale VIP list to save $300 and enroll a week early to secure your spot.
Click Here to View My Online Courses
Want to learn more from me? I have a variety of online courses on my website!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
_____
Want to learn more?  Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me:  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Youtube