Ignite Phyzio & Sports Performance

Ignite Phyzio & Sports Performance Concierge Physical Therapy and Sports Performance business

12/05/2025

When we talk about getting back to walking in the early stages post ACL reconstruction we often talk about how difficult it is to achieve full knee extension while we are weight-bearing on the involved side

But one thing I don’t see talked about often enough is flexing the knee as the leg finishes stance and begins the swing phase

I think two very underrated skills are knee flexion with the hip in extension and initiating knee flexion from end range knee extension

In video one, you’ll see that we prepositioned .t.miller (4 weeks post op) in hip extension in order to work on end range knee flexion and terminal knee extension, both of which will take pressure off the front of the knee as the leg swings through during the walking cycle

In video two, we promote full weight-bearing in knee extension against resistance and emphasize controlled knee flexion until the heel wants to come off the ground. This allows him to initiate the very early stages of knee flexion, which strengthens the popliteus, a muscle we fight a ton when somebody lacks knee extension

give these a try if you’re walking mechanics could use a boost

12/04/2025

Posterior chain/Pelvic control 🤝 Single Leg Stability

1. Hamstring sliders with resisted TKE and adductor/tibial IR moment

2. Single leg bridge isometric with hip abduction isometric

Posterior chain and hip control are a powerful combination in early ACL rehab

11/28/2025

Taking the foundations and adding more intention in ACL rehab

1. Wall sits are a staple. Wall sits with a band around the knees spice it up to engage the hips. Wall sits with band and BFR are amazing for overall tissue loading. Adding the to challenge cognition and dual tasking is applying a sport-like demand to an early stage pattern

2. Single leg balance with TKE is the staple. Adding a cross body chop will change the weight distribution through the foot and increase the single leg challenge

3. Heel sliders hamstring sliders are a staple. Adding a band and cuing tibial internal rotation to hit medial hamstring and politeus harder is a nice way to make a staple exercise more effective

11/27/2025

Terminal Knee Extension @ 7 weeks post ACL, college soccer player at

We all have our go tos for dialing in extension in weight bearing. Here’s some I like to build extension capacity

1. Slant board TKE: This one is a staple. The slant board increases length of the calf muscle complex while also allowing a walking based pattern to be achieved. I like incorporating hands on the wall to promote the Shin angling forward, which is what happens during late stage of the stance phase of walking. Bonus cue: hips go forward, drive the heel into the ground, quad drives the knee back

2 + 3: I love the idea of loading the quads from extension to flexion and back into extension. Most day-to-day tasks and most early stage issues revolve around being unable to control flexion from an extended position. So if we really emphasize controlling extension into flexion, and vice versa, we begin to train the knee to be OK moving in and out of extension with confidence. Think of this as a progression to going down the stairs with more confidence and strength.

11/26/2025

Frontal plane. Please please please don’t forget the frontal plane when it comes to strength, force production, deacceleration, and progressive, high-level agility

These three videos are a sample of what a frontal plane focus session could look like

Video 1: overcoming isometric in a change of direction posture to increase peak force development

Video 2: lateral sled pushes to facilitate expression of force with pelvis crossover step, which translates to change of direction

Video 3: immediately following sled pushes (contrast style superset) we focus on expressing force development into explosiveness with five consecutive single leg bounds

11/25/2025

I could put together a super long post about change of direction and high level deceleration and how important bit is to return to sport

But essentially if you can overload the eccentric portion of the movement then you’re doing a good job of trying to replicate high level deceleration

That’s where we enter the kBox and really leverage the principle of eccentric overload

The faster we can move against gravity the faster we will get pulled back down, which is where our deceleration prep really gets dialed in

11/21/2025

Sound on for this one. It’s long but it’s a good example of how I like going about cuing our athletes and giving them the grace and freedom to just figure s**t out on their own

Let them feel the movement and get a sense of what’s ok and what’s not. This is how we restore confidence. We have to let them get acclimated again and normalize the fact that every single rep isn’t going to be perfect.

Helping them understand why we’re doing what we’re doing is most important. Then I shut up and just let them figure it out

IMO knowing when to shut up is the biggest skill we all should be better at.

11/19/2025

I am being dramatic, but it’s really really important to understand why this band placement helps with hamstring engagement

First off, the amount of people we find that have really good tibial external rotation and really poor tibial internal rotation is mind blowing

The medial hamstrings play a large role in improving internal rotation of the tibia and often times the larger hamstring muscle, the biceps femoris, which sits on the outside of the back of the thigh, takes over this movement

So not only do you get to increase activation of two out of the three hamstring muscles, but you also get to improve tibial internal rotation with knee flexion, which in my experience is a big missing piece for anyone who is missing that last little bit of knee flexion

11/13/2025

We like to add patterns that will challenge the limb in single leg. This is a standard for ACL rehab and even more of a non negotiable for combat athletes

But it’s not always about moving the limb dynamically. Sometimes you need to train the pelvis to move on the hip because proximal stability is such a massive component of most all dynamic patterns

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