Dr Shari, DPT

Dr Shari, DPT I post good knee and ankle exercises. I simplify body science to understand your muscles and joints so you can change your habits and change your life.

04/30/2026

Small exercises to activate your muscles can be labeled as "a waste of time" until one day you wake up and say to yourself "what happened to my strength?!" Add this into your little routine now

Follow for more leg exercises to help you Exercise for Life

Before I give anyone an exercise, I look at three things.1. How are they loading the joint? Are they putting load throug...
04/30/2026

Before I give anyone an exercise, I look at three things.

1. How are they loading the joint? Are they putting load through a joint in a position it wasn't designed for or in a way that's asking the surrounding muscles to do too much?

2. What's happening above and below? The ankle affects the knee. The hip affects the knee. The thoracic spine affects the shoulder. Pain at one joint almost always has a story one joint up or down.

3. What pattern are they reinforcing every day? Not just in workouts...in how they sit, stand, carry, and move through their actual life.

These three things tell me more than any imaging report.
(Side note: MRI does not show pain. Pain is not seen, it is felt.)

This is the foundation of how I make decisions and why people often leave our first conversation saying "nobody has ever explained it to me like that before."

One of my favorite things to explain to clients is this:Your body never does something wrong. It does exactly what it ne...
04/29/2026

One of my favorite things to explain to clients is this:

Your body never does something wrong. It does exactly what it needs to do to keep you moving.

When something hurts or stops working, your body doesn't shut down, it finds a workaround. It shifts the load. It recruits a different muscle. It changes the pattern.

And it's brilliant at this. Until it isn't.

Because every compensation creates a new demand somewhere else. And over time, the thing that was helping you keep moving becomes the thing that's causing new problems.

This is why pain often shows up somewhere that isn't where the original problem started. And why treating only the pain without looking upstream keeps people stuck in a cycle.

Your body isn't broken. It's compensating. There's a difference and that difference is exactly where we start.

Weekly tips like this are in my newsletter. (Link in bio)

Imagine having 16-30 opportunities to get something right.Then it shifts to 1 opportunity. 1 chance to find out the exac...
04/27/2026

Imagine having 16-30 opportunities to get something right.

Then it shifts to 1 opportunity. 1 chance to find out the exact problem AND get the solution dialed in.

Talk about throwing yourself in the deep end and learning to swim FAST.

As a newer graduate when I switched to treating Active Duty Soldiers, and at times members of 5th Group Special Forces and pilots of 160th Aviation...the importance of my job escalated faster than I ever dreamt.

It was now my duty to evaluate and treat many who were in a narrow window of time before they left Ft. Campbell again.

This #1 is the reason I stopped being like every other physical therapist. I studied for hours every weekend. Reading research articles over my lunch break and in bed every night.

Helping end knee pain for someone who needed to carry 85lbs+ on-their-body and "hike" insane boulders and sides of mountains while not thinking of their knee and being mentally present in the moment...it changed me. It changed my skills.

I may have never been a member of the military. But military life shaped me professionally and personally.

The biggest thank you goes to my coworkers who helped me refine my skills in the early days.

Now that knowledge helps others like you be able to walk, squat, climb stairs and run to the best of your ability and without fear of pain.

Read more on this week's article (articles . sharilmiller . com)

Most people who come to me have already been somewhere else.They've rested. They've done a round of PT. They've Googled....
04/26/2026

Most people who come to me have already been somewhere else.

They've rested. They've done a round of PT. They've Googled. They've tried a program from someone online.

And things either didn't change, or changed briefly and came back.

Here's what I do differently:

I start with why. Not just what hurts, but why it hurts. This means seeing where the movement broke down, what the body started compensating for, and how long ago that compensation pattern actually started. I look at biomechanics.

Then we build from the foundation.

The six movements that life is actually built on: squat, bend, lift, reach, balance, propel forward. If any of these is compromised, everything else works around it and that's where downstream pain lives.

Then we load progressively. Not aggressively. We let the body confirm it's ready before we ask more of it.

It's not complicated. But it's specific. And specific is what changes things.

Something I explain constantly that always surprises people:If your knee hurts, the problem might not be in your knee.Kn...
04/24/2026

Something I explain constantly that always surprises people:

If your knee hurts, the problem might not be in your knee.

Knee pain is often downstream of a hip that's not doing its job.

When your outer hip muscles (particularly your glute medius) are weak, your knee takes the load it was never supposed to carry. It drifts inward. The tracking changes. And over time, that can cause pain.

The knee is where you feel it. The hip is where you fix it.

This is why a lot of generic knee programs don't work long term. They treat the symptom without finding the source.

Finding the source is always step one for me. That's what makes the difference.

04/24/2026

Knee hurts? Check your hip. This is one of the most underdiagnosed patterns I see.

Save this and follow for more.

Need more detail?
When your main outer hip muscles, gluteus medium, is not strong, your knee will cave inward. You start to feel it in your knee.

Just because you feel it in your knee doesnt mean the fix is at your knee.

04/20/2026

Know your Ankle

04/17/2026

IT Band syndrome in runners

In this week's article I go over signs your knee pain needs seen by a medical provider and when you may be able to give ...
04/15/2026

In this week's article I go over signs your knee pain needs seen by a medical provider and when you may be able to give it time and a specific plan to gradually let it get better.

Type in articles . ShariLMiller . com to get the latest article. I am purposely not putting a direct link as the algorithm will not show you this.

04/14/2026

Share and save this if it was helpful. That's the rule 😉

Some days knee pain feels like it is the new normal and is never going away.Well, if nothing changes then there is a goo...
04/13/2026

Some days knee pain feels like it is the new normal and is never going away.

Well, if nothing changes then there is a good chance it will stick around.

Truth is, you have to be ready to fight it. Be ready to do the small consistent things...the boring things...that truly make it go away.

Day-in-day-out. It doesn't have to take an hour a day. That would be silly and let's be honest, it just wouldn't happen because we are too busy.

But, if you're wondering if your knee pain is around forever, maybe you've been told you're getting old, it's arthritis or that you shouldn't run anymore...all of those are excuses doctors use because they don't have time to explain things. I am taking the time this week to explain more about it. Because when you understand it, you can make a plan and change things.

You'll find it all in this week's Monday article. (I'll post the link in the comments so the algorithm doesn't hide this from everyone.)

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Columbus, OH

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+16145264104

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Athletity Movement Clinic provides physical therapy and wellness Strategy sessions to keep you feeling your best. Our belief is being an athlete is not a phase of life, it’s a lifestyle. Your body is meant to move. Movement is medicine.