Thanksgiving is officially one week away!! If you are like me, that means launching into a spectacular season of parties with family and friends, making and eating plenty of delicious food, hauling out trees and boxes of decoration…and…an overall totally lack of routine from Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Year. And that is totally cool. ‘Tis the season, after all, and who would want to miss out on this merriment? Perhaps we weren’t even meant to be in the same routi

I am frequently asked, “What is the best whole body exercise?” Hmmm…something that will target most muscles in the body. Planks? Definitely a favorite of mine. Burpees? Though I am not sure what the current obsession is in the fitness community with burpees, if done correctly, I do like a good burpee. Downward dog? Certainly one of my go-tos for a good stretch of many muscles. But my hands-down favorite whole body exercise is (drum roll please): Single leg balance. Go ahea

(And I am talking about more than that chair massager you bought off the infomercial.) I don’t think I am alone when I say that I love giving gifts. Actually, the only reason I am okay with receiving gifts is because I know that other people like giving gifts just as much as I do. I meet monthly with my 4th grade Lunch Buddy, and at our last lunch, I listened as she told me all about the crafts that she was making each of her family members. It was November, and she felt l

That title was not meant to be a riddle. Strap on those seatbelts, folks, because I am about to venture into a territory I don’t normally go: weight lifting. I gave up thinking about Olympic weights shortly after my collegiate career ended, though I would like to take a moment to thank my college lifting coach for making this distance runner rather competent on deadlifts, cleans, good mornings, etc. (as well as to apologize for never actually achieving an unassisted pullup)

Do you smell what I smell in the air? That’s Winter, friends, and though we can all lament southwest Ohio’s overall lack of Fall 2018, we must face the fact that my car read 29 degrees outside this morning. I love winter, and if it could snow until March, I would be thrilled. You also may know by now that I love running. I can’t say that I love running in the winter. In fact, unless it is 90 degrees outside, I am most assuredly feeling cold, so when it is 30 degrees, I hi

Last fall, I volunteered my PT services at a weekly running group. I showed up early, ran with the group, and stayed late in hopes of doing injury screens and answering questions about running aches and pains. Runners are my people: I’ve been a competitive runner and have now graduated to recreational runner, and I was excited to help my people. The result? I was totally shunned by my people. All the while whispering to their friends about their low back pain, IT Band syndr

“Do you take my insurance?” is the #1 question I get from inquiring patients. The truth is, no. 212 is considered “out of network” with all insurance companies. Now, before you click the back button on your browser, hear me out because this isn’t about 212 being out of network. This is about making you a more educated consumer. Have you ever received a bill weeks after an appointment and thought, “Hmmm. I was not aware that I would owe that much.”? I certainly have. Less

Like any good idea, it all started at a bar: I was grabbing some wings with my older brother one night while I was in grad school, and he started asking how my clinical rotation was going. I was at a small private practice owned by a husband and wife. “It’s great,” I told him. “My instructors own the clinic and do physical therapy exactly how they envision it.” My brother, always the idea-generator, quickly turned my endorsement back at me. “Do you think you could own your ow

While I did not always know that I would be a physical therapist, I always knew that I was going to have to play a big role in changing physical therapy. Like many physical therapists, I was once the injured athlete. That is not entirely true. During my competitive running career at Xavier University, I was just plain “injury prone”. Unlike other physical therapists, however, I was not inspired to become one as a result of the excellent therapy I received. On the contrary