Stop Feeling Overwhelmed And Frustrated When Trying To Help Gymnasts With Back Pain

The rates of lower back pain in gymnastics are terrifying, being as high as 85% in some studies. Even worse is the massive negative impact back pain has on a gymnast's health, performance, and their entire life.

Back injuries are one of the biggest contributing factors to prolonged pain, frustration, and gymnasts quitting the sport due to concerns for their long term health.

A lot of it comes down to the fact that gymnastics is one of the hardest sports in the world. It requires young athletes to do hundreds of repetitions of high force skills per week, almost year-round. Huge compression forces and extreme ranges of motion have been measured in the lower backs of gymnasts when performing common skills.

For medical providers, it’s is quite a daunting task to help gymnasts struggling with these injuries. With such a complex sport that has high forces, high repetitions, and even higher numbers of hours spent in the gym,

It can almost seem impossible to find ways to help.

I've Been Exactly Where You Are, and It's Not Fun.

As a gymnast who had really bad back problems, as a gymnastics coach who has had gymnasts quit because of their back pain, and as a medical provider who has treated well over 500 gymnasts for a variety of back injuries,I know these feelings all too well.

To say it feels awful is an understatement.

I know exactly what that stomach turning sensation of frustration, being overwhelmed, and feeling terrible is like when a gymnast is sitting in front of you asking for help, but you honestly don't know what else to say or do.

Like many other medical providers and allied health professionals, it truly breaks my heart to see the devastating impact that these injuries can have on the gymnasts and their families.

When I was a younger clinician, I knew I wanted to help gymnasts with back pain having gone through it myself, and because I was both a coach and Physical Therapist who knew the sport gymnastics.

Despite hours and hours of researching and trying to find answers, nothing I tried seemed to be making a long-term change in the rates of re-injury and quitting for gymnasts I was treating .

I distinctly remember when one of the gymnasts I coached and treated for back pain called me crying. She had just been diagnosed with a significant lower back stress fracture, and that due to new numbness in her legs and her inability to drive or sit in school without pain, her family and her had decided she would be quitting gymnastics. She would no longer be pursuing competing for a college team she had worked her whole life for.

It absolutely crushed me. I was supposed to be the coach and Physical Therapist who had the answers to help. But because I lacked an evidenced based system, rehabilitation protocols, and the tools I needed, I was unable to help her.

And this kept happening in some way, shape, or form over the next 6 months. It is also unfortunately a common story for so many medical providers and gymnasts around the world.

I hundreds of emails and messages from medical providers, parents, coaches, and gymnasts who are completely lost on how to get help for their back pain.

Thousands of gymnasts around the world struggle with back pain, go to well intentioned health care providers to get help, and when clinicians research what to do...they come up dry.

It leaves gymnast, clinicians, parents, and coaches struggling to find solutions and a result feeling really frustrated. And I empathize with clinicians, as despite all my best efforts I could not find a medical system to help gymnasts.

They may find a handful of exercises or other techniques that temporarily reduce pain, but they can not find a gymnastics specific, step by step system to evaluate, treat, and build specific return to sports programs for these athletes.

Get A Step By Step, Evidence Based System To Evaluate, Treat, And Build Return To Sport Programs For Gymnasts

So after seeing so many gymnasts struggle with back pain, and after being frustrated with not having the tools I needed to help them, it lit a fire in me.

I decided it was time to build a new, gymnastics specific, evidenced based system to help gymnasts with their back pain.

I was lucky that I had mentors who worked in other professional and Olympic sports, and that I also was friends with elite level gymnastics coaches.

Over 5 years, I took all that they had learned, and also spend endless of hours researching, taking courses, and treating hundreds gymnasts with back pain.

After many rounds of trial and error, this new system was finally starting to get real results.

I started being able to help gymnasts who had been to multiple doctors and health care providers get out of pain and back to full gymnastics training.

Not only this, they went above and beyond their previous performance level (which their coaches and parents were happy about as well).

By giving them a specific movement diagnosis based on talking with them, doing a head to to evaluation, identifying the gymnastics skills that hurt, and then building a step by step rehabilitation protocol followed by a gymnastics specific objective return to sports program, I started really seeing amazing results.

I started seeing gymnasts cry tears of joy that they didn’t have to quit gymnastics, instead of tears of frustration that they may have to give up the sport they love, a community with their friends, and an environment that taught them important life values.

The one that really hit home for me was when 5 years later, one of the gymnasts I coached who was in her senior year of college suddenly had a really big flare up back pain in the middle of her competitive season.

She was completely knocked out of training, and was terrified that she was going to miss her last final year as the captain of her team.

Thankfully with this systematic approach to her back pain, and a lot of great supporting people on her team of providers, I was able to watch her compete in her senior meet and enjoy a positive end to her career.

It was one of the best moments I had as a medical provider having had a gymnast in a similar position quit 5 years ago because I didn’t know how to help her.

I want medical providers all over the world working with gymnast to have that exact same feeling.

I want them to feel confident in their ability to help gymnasts, and share the same joy I had when they can help a gymnast get out of pain.

I want to give them the exact system and step by step process I have seen help hundreds of gymnasts with back pain, so that they can change the lives of gymnasts they work with.

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