Years of Knee Pain With No Resolution: A Case Finally Resolved
How a detailed assessment guided training to long term improvements
As a trainer or coach our job is not to do rehab, but sometimes in the process of helping someone through their training, you may find something that’s been overlooked. I often find myself along the continuum of training, slotting in between rehab and performance. In the case of one of my clients, who is also a very active trainer and dancer, it was an assessment that changed everything.
When Jonathan came to me for a different perspective on navigating his knee issues, he had spent years doing Physical Therapy and other rehab training with little to know results. He had tried the Knees Over Toes program among other things, with no success.
At the time that we met he was doing Physical Therapy. He wasn’t getting any results from it. He was cleared to do all of his activities, but he just wasn’t seeing the longer term results he wanted. This made sense, considering the therapy he was receiving was from a facility where the therapist didn’t spend much more than 10 minutes with him before handing over some generic exercises and leaving him with an aide.
My first step was to consult with my Physical Therapist colleagues in order to get feedback about their thoughts regarding training. Their thoughts were to do my own assessment and to work safely within the client’s limitations.
To be clear, I was not guided by nor promising to resolve pain despite that being the client’s goal. I make it clear that our goal is to get to know what his body was capable of. We wanted to find out any constraints and deficits he may have and address them specifically.
Many people argue for regression of global exercises or activities is a solution to the issues. I would argue that global exercise regression is just one component of an overall program.
The global exercise is an artificially made up thing.