by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Recently, I was looking over a list of Vladimir Janda’s best quotes about the human body and I have to admit that I ended up taking a lot of time going one by one through the list and really took my time as I tried to digest all of […]
Foam Rolling that Actually Works
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS A few years ago, it was interesting to see how popular foam rollers became in the fitness and rehab world. Seemingly every facility that you walk into has an endless number of rollers laying around and when you open up an equipment catalog, you see rollers of all sizes, […]
Does Corrective Exercise Have to be Perfect?
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Corrective Exercise is a bit of an overused buzzword at times in our field these days, but the idea of using specific and directed exercises to improve larger, more useful patterns is something that I do a lot and is essential to helping people perform better and stay injury […]
Hip Internal Rotation and Low Back Pain
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that low back pain is a huge issue and affects the majority of Americans at some point in their lives. One discouraging fact about low back pain is that despite our best efforts and all of the medical advances in therapies, […]
What are the odds?
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Prior to becoming an NCAA Division I rehab coordinator and strength coach, I spent 5 1/2 years coaching youth athletes at a private performance and rehab facility. It was a great gig for my first job, but ultimately wasn’t my dream job. I learned a ton in those 5 […]
Tab Arch Taping Technique
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Last week I posted on Instagram about an interesting patient that I had in the clinic with a rare condition and a unique solution that I found that seems to be working well for her. The post got quite a bit of views, so I thought it would be […]
Chasing Qualities
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Recently, I came across an interesting quote by Dan John. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Dan John, he is well known in the fitness industry for his matter-of-fact approach to fitness and movement and his ability to teach complex concepts in a way that is easy […]
Practical Approach to the SFMA
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS I love using the Selective Functional Movement Assessment, or SFMA, in my practice. A few years ago, it completely changed how I approach assessing my patients. I give Gray Cook, Lee Burton, Kyle Kiesel, Mike Voight, Greg Rose and the rest of the crew who developed the SFMA a […]
What Young Athletes Need to Know About Training
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS As the prevention, rehab and physical performance coordinator and former strength and conditioning coach at a NCAA Division I university, I have been asked a number of times over the years about what I would like for high school coaches to do with their athletes, or what I would […]
Tib-Fib Dysfunction
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS For many years, I completely under appreciated the role of the proximal tibio-fibular joint. I was always lead to believe that it is pretty much a fixed joint that doesn’t have much of an impact on movement. Of course, just as with many other areas of the body, I […]
When are Orthotics Right?
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS I have been on record as saying over the last couple of years that I only fit about 1/5th of the orthotics that I used to just a few years ago. This is for a whole host of reasons, but overall, my major reasoning for decreasing the number that […]
When to Return to Play After an ACL Injury
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are always a hot topic of discussion in sports medicine circles, not just because of the debilitating nature of the injury, but also because of the high rate of reinjury following an ACL injury. Of the approximately 250,000 ACL injuries that occur each day […]
12 Hacks for the Overhead Squat
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS The overhead squat is, in my opinion, the best raw indicator of someone’s ability to move well. It requires full extension of the upper extremity and full flexion of the lower extremity at the same time. This requires a lot of mobility, stability and motor control. Notice that I […]
Why I Don’t Perform Static Stretching (and what to do instead)
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS I talk a lot about the need for mobility to ensure high quality movement patterns. As Gray Cook says, “If we aren’t mobile, we will never be stable.” I agree completely, thus from a corrective exercise perspective, we must correct mobility issues immediately when we find them. One recurrent […]
What is the Art of Coaching?
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS If you are reading this blog, odds are good you are a coach, regardless of what initials are behind your name. If you work in a clinic, you coach your patient’s every day to improve their function. If you work with athletes, of course you are a coach. If […]
Unpacking Lower Cross
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS The other day I posted a video on social media of me discussing Janda’s Lower Cross Syndrome in a recent seminar. It’s something I discuss a lot in almost all of my seminars because it is so important to understand and it is so prevalent in our culture. This […]
Why I Don’t Strengthen the Rotator Cuff
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS I perform a lot of shoulder rehab with athletes and patients on a regular basis. This ranges from fairly major cases such as post operative labral repairs, rotator cuff repairs and thoracic outlet syndrome to biceps tendinitis and shoulder impingement. All of these conditions come with their own set […]
Survival Mode
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS “How do I ensure that I can get done tomorrow what I am doing today if I don’t have food, water or other resources?” This is what the brain thinks about every second of every day. The brain is simply concerned with one thing…Survival. Living another day is always […]
6 Top Tools to Improve Movement
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Its interesting to look back over the years at all of the tools, machines and implements that we have used over the past 18 years that I have been practicing as an athletic trainer and strength coach. During that time, I have worked in a small physical therapy clinic, […]
Reaction to the Strength Coach Controversy
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Recently, an article was published by CBS sports that has made the circles in social media about the unregulated world of collegiate strength and conditioning. Having worked at a NCAA Division I institution as both an athletic trainer and a strength coach for almost 10 years, this article struck […]
Strength or Stability?
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS We can get into a lengthy discussion as to which is more important, strength or stability. The reality is, it depends (as I often say in my courses). It depends on the needs of the person and what our goals are for them. My goal with this blog post […]
Neuroplasticity in Chronic Disease
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Neuroplasticity is not only a very interesting and intriguing concept to me as a clinician and coach, it is also extremely personal. On this day 5 years ago, my wife and I received the devastating news that I was being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that affects about […]
Components of a Good Screen
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS I’ve said recently that the evaluation process is by far the most important part of your training or rehab program. If you don’t know your patients or clients, you can’t give them the proper interventions. What I didn’t address in that post is, what does a proper screen really […]
The Injured GPS System
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS Recently, I came across an article from the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy discussing ACL rehab entitled, “Neuroplasticity Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury: A Framework for Visual-Motor Training Approaches in Rehabilitation.” Anytime I see something about ACL injuries and rehab involving the brain, I perk up and […]
The Most Important Thing
By Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS What is the most important thing when designing a program? Is it exercise selection? Is it the sequencing and timing of your interventions? Is it sets, reps, and volume? Those things are all important, but the honest truth is that the most important thing in the programming process is […]
New Approach to Preventing Ankle Sprains
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS According to NCAA reporting, ligament strains to the ankle are the most common injury across 15 sports with a rate of 14.8% of all injuries. They can be annoying, nagging and even debilitating. Everyday I work with a large number of high risk athletes in sports such as basketball, […]
Traction Hip Mobility
by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS The hips are often problematic with our patients, clients and athletes. They tend to be tight and restricted, even though the joint is designed and intended to have a very large range of motion. This is ultimately because a lot of people are unstable in other areas of the […]
