With ski season here, most people create a checklist to make sure all their gear is ready to go. Edges are sharpened, boards are waxed, goggle lenses are replaced, and you're ready for the first good snow of the season. With all the attention we pay to the material goods of the sport, we tend to forget about our bodies' readiness to hit the slopes.

If you’ve ever dealt with sciatica, the very mention of it may give you the chills. It can be rough and nearly mind-bending discomfort –– or you could experience it as “tingling” or “tightness” that comes and goes. I would describe sciatica as symptoms radiating down the back of the glute, thigh, lower leg and foot. This is a gross oversimplification, but at least it embraces many of the phenomena that would qualify as stemming from your sciatic nerve. If you’re like most people, you’ll probably either let it go and think it’ll eventually go away on its own, or you’ll make one of the common mistakes below. Unfortunately, these mistakes can land you in a heap of trouble and you may find your life becomes more limited in the process. Take a look and see if you may be making these mistakes:

As any triathlete knows, riding a Time Trial (TT) bike is not the most comfortable position to maintain for 5, 10, 56, 112 miles or more. First and foremost, please get a good fit from a highly regarded certified bike fitter. Fitters can get certified through a variety of organizations such as: International Bike Fitting Institute, Retul, Wobble-Naught, FIST, etc. It is easy to get lost in a sea of bike fitters, so find a fitter affiliated with a local tri club or cycling team where you can ask around about the fitters expertise & experience. Creating a team of a PT, coach, and bike fitter is the ideal scenario for injury prevention.

Why are you seeking PT? Are you rehabbing post-op (after surgery), recovering from an injury, or looking for guidance and training for athletics? While these are all popular and valid reasons for seeking out a qualified physical therapist, one of the main reasons people come to physical therapy is due to pain.

Have you ever come off the court and thought “wow my elbow feels tight”? Or you finished your match and noticed your elbow was sore when you grabbed your bag. Or maybe you took a shot and felt a jolt on the outside of your elbow.

It’s fall in Atlanta, and it’s time to get back out on the tennis court. How are you feeling? Do you feel strong and well prepared? Are you excited to help your teammates work toward another championship? Or are you crossing your fingers that the tennis elbow from last season stays away? Gingerly testing out your knee that feels fine until you try to run? Hoping your sticky shoulder doesn’t impact your serve?

As a swimmer, this is my best kept secret. Swimming is a unique sport due to the environment in which you’re in. This makes rehabbing a swimmer fairly unique. When I work with athletes, their primary goals are to return to sport and enhance performance. But most sports are on land. Nothing can really replicate swimming out of the water; and so fully reconditioning a swimmer would often be challenging. To reproduce similar forces, leverage, and buoyancy that water applies to a joint has always been difficult. That’s until I discovered Redcord.

So I have talked to several friends and colleagues about Activcore. It is quite easy for them to see that the most apparent differences between Activcore and your conventional physical therapy are: 1) longer treatment session duration, and 2) use of the Redcord suspension system. However, I would vehemently assert that having more one-on-one time with the client does not simply lead to an opportunity to perform a greater number of sets and reps of each exercise. Rather it provides a more focused, client-centered approach that involves greater attention to detail and a more intimate understanding of each person’s needs.

Treatment and acknowledgment of concussions have drastically changed over the past few decades. In the 1970’s and 1980’s athletes weren't accurately screened, nevermind diagnosed with a concussion. A “stinger” or “hard knock” were common ways to describe those who took a hit to the head or appeared dazed. The injured athletes were commonly held out for a short period of time. As soon as they started feeling better, they were sent back into the game.

Whether you are a former runner, a seasoned runner, or just beginning, how you are running is important. I don’t know about you, but until recently I was just lacing up my sneakers and running out the door. I never thought much about the way I was running, just how many miles I was going to do and how fast I could get them done. Your running form is just as important to your training as mileage, duration, and intensity. A few variables that can have a big impact on your performance include a proper warm-up, cadence, and shoe wear.