While Athletic Therapists are best known for rushing onto the field of play during a professional sporting event, they actually play and integral role in the entire spectrum of care for athletes and active populations. Being experts in sport medicine, athletic therapists also assess and treat all manor of musculoskeletal injuries in a clinical setting for both athletes and non athletes. Musculoskeletal injuries include all injuries to muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons in the human body and athletic therapists treat these in every scenario including pre/post operative, gradual or insidious onset, and acute trauma. Along with musculoskeletal injuries, Athletic therapist also manage concussions from a preventative, assessment, and rehabilitative standpoint.
Athletic Therapists use a variety of treatment methods including manual therapy, electrotherapeutic modalities, taping techniques, exercise, and patient education. Every therapist including physiotherapists, chiropractors, and athletic therapists treat in individual ways. Kyle takes a biomechanically integrated approach to determining the root cause of your problem and treats the system as a whole to ensure recovery is fast, effective and your chance of reinjury is much lower. He does not just treat symptoms, he treats the human/athlete individually so that when they are able to return to activity, they can do so in even better condition than prior to injury.
Evidence based practice plays an important role in any rehabilitation which is the process of utilizing patient perspective, therapist expertise, empirical evidence, and scientific research to create the most effective and efficient plan of care. Kyle emphasizes input from all aspects of evidence based practice into his rehabilitation programs.
Kyle’s approach bridges the gap between initial rehabilitation practices and later stage strength and conditioning when returning the athlete to sport. His combined background in sport medicine and strength and conditioning gives him the ability to design periodized programs that progress athletes fluidly from one stage to the next without the need for transfer or referral of care. This also allows athletes and patients to learn important concepts throughout their rehab that apply long after they are back in competition or general activity.
Another aspect of Athletic Therapy is injury risk management. Athletic Therapists can utilize a lot of the tactics involved in rehabilitation along with others to ensure athletes minimize their risk of injury while performing at the highest level possible. This includes pre-participation screening, warm up and cool down programming, prophylactic taping and bracing, movement analysis and correction, and general strength and conditioning. Consistent, uninterrupted training is vital to reaching your maximal athletic potential and remaining injury free is the key to reaching this point as fast as possible.