Mick Hughes:
Sports & Exercise Physiotherapist
M. Sports Physio, B. Physio, B.Ex. Sci.

I've previously posted about the single leg hop test and its role in the decision-making process regearding return to sport following lower limb injury. Now, I'll cover the 4 hop test battery that is commonly used in return to sport testing following ACL surgery (SEE picture above). 2 recent studies (Kyritsis et al., 2016 & Grindem et al, 2016) show that athletes were significantly more likely to sustain a 2nd ACL injury when all discharge criteria were NOT met; which include

Last week I shared a simple clinical test (Star Excursion Balance Test) that can be used to help guide the decision-making process around returning to sport following lower limb injury. Here is another one; The Single Leg Hop Test. The goal of this test is to jump as far as possible on each leg, aiming to "stick" the land. The aim is to have the recently injured limb within 10% of the uninjured limb. Along with other hop tests (triple hop, crossover hop and 6m timed hop), p

What tests do you use to guide your patient's/athlete's return to sport following lower limb injury; such as ankle sprains or knee/hip injury? The Star Excursion Balance Test (as shown in pic above) is a valid and reliable test, as are the single leg/triple/triple crossover/6m timed Hop Tests, and the Agility T-Test. The Star Excursion Balance Test is a beauty and it's benefit is 3-fold: 1) It can be used as a rehab exercise 2) It can be used to guide return to sport dec

Lateral ankle sprains (LAS) are one of the most common sports injuries, especially in indoor/outdoor court sports such as Basketball, Netball and Tennis (Fong et al., 2007). As a result they have a high economic burden with direct and indirect costs associated with the injury. Some researchers claim that the burden of LAS in the US alone during the 90s/2000s was in excessive of US$2 billion per year (Dallinga et al., 2012). The concerning thing is that this figure may be unde

Squats often get a bad rap for hurting people's knees, and there's a lot of argument about how you should do them. First things first: There's no "better" way to do a Squat. Depth of Squat (1/4, 1/2, Full) and what type (Front, Back, Trap Bar, Kettle Bell, Sumo etc) are all dependent on the person and what their goals are. Even knees past your toes is ok - to a certain extent. See these great blogs about Squats: 1) http://trustmephysiotherapy.com/myth-knees-never-past-your-