How many of you deal with athletes post injury and are looking to test out your athletes for return to sport?  Chances are you want to use some objective criteria to back up your reasoning for returning an athlete to sport.  While not all inclusive, return to sport tests such as the hop tests begin doing just that.  Many other factors go into return to sport testing such as unplanned/reaction training, power training, sport biomechanics, position specific training, fatigue training, and more.  However, objective criteria still plays a role in our return to sport testing of our athletes.  If you are unfamiliar with the more common tests from the research I would encourage you to see my site dedicated to providing video demonstrations and literature to support return to sport testing.  Do you use any of these tests in the clinic?  Why or why not?  

Want to learn about all inclusive return to sport testing?  Check out the Insider Access pages for how to prepare your athletes for return to sport and what is NOT in the literature. 

  http://www.thesportsperformancept.com/functional-tests.html

- Brian Schwabe, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS

I've recently been seeing a bunch of basketball players that have sprained their ankles.  One of the things I always see with basketball players is very stiff ankles.  It brought me back to some of the different techniques I use for improving ankle mobility.  My favorite has to be mobilization with movement. Having a belt is easy to use but you can also use mobility bands.  As always, have a test & retest position to show the athletes their progress.  In addition, see this post by Mike Reinold for multiple ways to mobilize the ankle via soft tissue and joint mobs.  

- Brian