A Dynamic Approach to ACL Rehabilitation and Prevention - A Guest Blog

Throughout the history of this blog, I have attempted to share with you the latest research and how this might influence our assessment of athletes or training of athletes.  Having focused the last 20 years on ACL rehabilitation and prevention I have been blessed to come across a lot of people who share this passion (or what I call a higher calling) to help athletes stay safe and perform better.  Many of these folks have applied the latest research to their craft or technology.  I am inspired by some of the amazing products that are out there that have been created to help you and I do what we do better, to allow us to do it more efficiently and provide the athlete with a better outcome.  

Considering, I have felt like this should be shared with our viewership.  So, over the course of the next several blogs series, I have reached out to some of these folks who are on the cutting to see if they would mind contributing to our blog.  To provide our viewership a glimpse of their products, what the science is behind these products and how this can be applied to the athlete.  I have personally vetted each of these to make sure this is science based and NOT a sales pitch.  So, please sit back and enjoy as we venture into some of the latest and greatest in movement science and sports medicine. - Sincerely ~ Trent Nessler, PT, MPT, DPT
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A Dynamic Approach to ACL Rehabilitation and Prevention - A Guest Blog

Over the course of decades of clinical practice and with my adventures across the country, I get the opportunity to meet some amazing people that are doing some amazing things.  Folks who share my passion for prevention and who are on the forefront of innovation for injury prevention.  Rarely do I come across someone who shares this passion and is doing something innovative that is truly impactful on non-contact injury rates.

Keith J. Cronin, DPT, OCS, CSCS is one of those guys.  I have personally seen the impact of some tapping techniques that he is doing have a direct impact on an athlete's ability to control frontal plane motion and speed of motion at their knee (two major risk factors).  So I have asked Keith to provide a guest blog on what he is doing in order to share this with your audience.

A “Dynamic” Approach to ACL Rehabilitation and Prevention

If you are interested in ACL rehabilitation and looking for: 

• A treatment that impacts an athlete ON and OFF the field 
• A methodology that addresses all movement impairments the result of poor activation, weakness, or body mechanics 
• A system that gives you, the clinician, absolute control in how much force and which direction to push or pull the body to work at its best

This blog series is for you.

Since I first saw the “ACL Play It Safe” program and kit my initial response was, “wow, this just makes sense.” ACL rehabilitation and return to sport is already confounded with many different factors, including, but not limited to: 

• Extent of injury / movement dysfunction 
• Quality of Rehabilitation Adherence / compliance of patient 
• Sport played 
• Internal healing aptitude (yes, some people are just more Wolverine than the rest of us) 
• Anatomy 
• Previous Injuries

If the goal is to maximally train the body using the right series of exercises to inevitably pass a battery of movement tests, what then are we most concerned about? So many things perhaps, but for this article we are going to examine improving movement using a strong recoiling viscoelastic tape is a toll that should be in everyone’s tool belt. And we aren’t talking about rigid tape or kinesiology tape, we are referring to Dynamic Tape, the “Original” Biomechanical Tape, that is changing the way clinicians think about taping.

Dynamic Tape: If Kinesiology Tape and Rigid Tape Had a Baby…….

Before we get into taping techniques, let us start with what we know.

Pretty much everyone is familiar with rigid tape. Whether its leuko (medical duct tape) or white  

athletic tape the product is simple:

• Place the body in a neutral or corrected position 
• Use a rigid, no elastic product to restrict movement 
• Tape across a joint to have a mechanical effect 
• PURPOSE – reduce stress on damaged tissues through mechanically locking up a joint

These techniques have been around for 40+ years and if you are an athletic trainer, you by trade are a master of the craft. Researchers are at least mostly in agreeance that if you prevent a joint from moving overall the kinematics of human movement will change.

In the late 1970s, a chiropractor named Dr. Kenzo Kase figured out how to push this in an entirely different direction. His approach was to use a stretch cotton product that allowed full ROM while having a neurophysiological effect on the body.

1.       Place a muscle in a lengthened position

2.       Use a stretch cotton that extends to 140 – 170% of length to pull on the skin / soft tissue

3.       Tape in different patterns to have different effects on the body

4.       PURPOSE – to create a neurophysiological interface to afferently affect the nervous system to efferent reduce pain and swelling

Millions of rolls are sold throughout the US each year from pediatrics to post-surgical to geriatrics to sports. But here is where a lot of researches and getting into some arguments. It is true that there has been research to support having a positive effect on chronic pain (more than 3 months) with the low back but when it comes to making mechanical changes, the data just isn’t there.

Ryan Kendrick, physical therapist and creator of Dynamic Tape, felt the same way. He worked with professional tennis players and was always looking for way to extend his treatments onto the court. He liked using rigid tape to make mechanical changes but it locked up motion, meaning his athletes could not move the way they wanted. Kinesiology tape allowed 100% range but did not have the ability to absorb force or alter movement patterns that would improve function. He thought to himself what if a tape could:

• Absorb force to reduce the workload in the muscles and underlying tissue
• Change movement patterns immediately through strong recoil 
• Allow for 100% ROM with no rigid end to the tape  Be soft, breathe easy to prevent skin decay 
• Stretch in 4 directions to contour to the human body exceptional well   
• Stack “tape on top of tape” to increase force if necessary

To learn more, watch this 2-minute whiteboard video on the innovation that is Dynamic Tape

From this he created the first even Biomechanical Taping System that sports and rehab have ever seen. Since 2010, this product has made its way into 35 countries on word of mouth alone. You may have seen it and thought it was another kinesiology tape but today you will learn how this advancement in taping technology is going elevate your ability to manage ACL rehab, and everything else for that matter.  

Next week we will begin to discuss how you can use Dynamic Taping to improve quad control in your ACL patient.

About the author Keith J. Cronin DPT, OCS, CSCS

Keith J. Cronin is a physical therapist and owner of Sports and Healthcare Solutions, LLC., a consulting company that works with domestic and international companies to provide quality clinical education and sales training for rehab and athletic products. Keith graduated with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT) from Belmont University in 2008 and later earned his Orthopedic Certification Specialist (OCS). Keith currently is a reviewer for the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy (IJSPT) on a variety of topics including throwing athletes, concussions, and ACL rehabilitation. Keith has produced several online CEU courses for PTWebcuation.com on the topics of running injuries, ACL rehabilitation, Patellofemoral Syndrome, and injuries to the Foot and Ankle. In 2012, Keith participated in a concussion education program in Newcastle, OK that resulted in the documentary “The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer” which had several runs on PBS worldwide.

Keith has also been published in a variety of media, publishing almost 100 articles through venues including MomsTEAM.com, Advanced Magazine, the 9s Magazine, the American Coaching Academy, and Suite101. Keith was also featured on Fox2News several times on topics of concussions and ACL injuries. In 2008, Keith was a winner of the Olin Business Cup at Washington University for his product innovation “Medibite” a jaw rehabilitation system designed to improve the outcomes for individuals suffering TMJ dysfunction. Prior to graduate school Keith was a collegiate baseball player and top-level high school cross country runner. Keith also had the opportunity to work as a personal trainer (CSCS) prior to his career in physical therapy, providing a very balanced approached to educating fitness and rehabilitation. Keith has focused his career on the evaluation, treatment, injury prevention, and sports conditioning strategies for athletes, with particular attention to youth sports.

Keith lives in the Denver, CO with his wife and two daughters, Ella and Shelby. 

Dr. Nessler is a practicing physical therapist with over 20 years sports medicine clinical experience and a nationally recognized expert in the area of athletic movement assessment.  He is the developer of an athletic biomechanical analysis, is an author of a college textbook on this subject  and has performed >5000 athletic movement assessments.  He serves as the National Director of Sports Medicine Innovation for Select Medical, is Chairman of Medical Services for the International Obstacle Racing Federation and associate editor of the International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training.   He is also a competitive athlete in Jiu Jitsu.