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Women can experience a lot of undesirable symptoms during perimenopause, including reduced energy levels, dramatic mood changes, and incredibly uncomfortable hot flashes. Many also notice changes in their body composition, including the loss of lean muscle mass and increased abdominal fat. Put another way, perimenopause is stressful for everyone; however, it can be especially frustrating...

How Many Minutes Of Strength Training Do I Need To Live Longer?

Exercise remains our best intervention for extending an individual’s health span and lifespan.  Both our quality and quantity of life are positively impacted by consistent aerobic exercise and strength training performance each week.  In particular, strength training is our best tool to reduce the loss of muscle mass associated with aging (sarcopenia).  In addition, new...

Is Blood Flow Restriction Training Helpful In Healthy Populations?

Blood flow restriction (BFR) training has become increasingly popular in both rehabilitation and performance settings because of its ability to stimulate muscle growth and strength adaptations with lighter loads. But what happens when BFR is added to traditional heavy strength training? A recent systematic review and meta-analysis (Mckee et al. J Strength Conditioning Res. 2026)...

Are you wondering when it will happen to you? Not what , but when will you feel pain or develop an injury? Can you determine your injury risk? The answer is YES! There are screening tools that allow athletes to assess their injury risk. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a valid indicator of injury...

When Should a Massage Therapist Refer to Physical Therapy?

By: Ian Nay, PT, DPT, OCS At Mend Physical Therapy, we spend a lot of time working with people who are already doing many of the right things. They train regularly, they prioritize recovery, and a lot of them are getting consistent massage work. That combination matters. Good soft tissue work can absolutely help reduce...

The majority of people with lower quarter pain or symptoms will demonstrate altered coordination and communication between the nervous system and muscles.  This leads to altered movement patterns which may perpetuate symptoms and lead to more chronic pain and muscle imbalances.  Primary movers for our movement patterns (example: gluts) may be substituted for weaker, less...

A common question we receive from young throwers and their parents is how to improve throwing velocity safely without undue stress on their arms.  Our prior posts on throwing have focused on reducing arm stress through injury prevention and lower quarter strengthening.  This post will focus on the research surrounding exercise programs designed to improve...

Money and time are two finite resources affecting us each day.  We struggle to meet the demands of family, work, community, and our endurance training.  Busy endurance athletes often forgo the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep required for optimal recovery to squeeze in another commitment compared to their team sport peers.  The choice to cut...

As the triathlon off season carries forward into the Spring athletes should be focused on the evaluation, treatment, and/or prevention of last season’s nagging injuries.  Specifically, athletes competing in Triathlon should see a reduction in their endurance training and a corresponding increase in weight training.  The additional time placed on weight training in the off...

A common question we receive in clinic is how many repetitions should I perform of this strengthening exercise?  Clearly, enough repetitions are needed under a given load to promote beneficial changes within the tissues for improvements in both healing and performance.  Ranges of repetitions range from < 5, 8-12 reps, and >15 reps depending on...