Physical Therapy

Douglas Wisoff , P.T.

Douglas Wisoff has been a licensed and practicing Physical Therapist for 14 years in the Boulder / Denver area, and in that time he has treated over 1500 people for every conceivable diagnosis related to Physical Therapy. Douglas offers a unique blend of mainstream and holistic techniques for physical therapy and sports injury rebrehabilitation.

His areas of experience include:

• Neuro-trauma
• Orthopedics
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Auto Injury Rehabilitation
• Home Health Therapy
• Postural Correction
• Sports Medicine
• Repetitive use injury as it occurs in sport and occupation.

Free initial consultations and assessments. E-mail Douglas or call 303-499-2062 , for an appointment.

Although he now specializes in body use and movement for all activities with a specific interest in running, these years of experience gained in working with all kinds of injury and musculo-skeletal conditions have made a large contribution to Douglas's understanding of the body, its potential to heal, and how to stimulate those healing powers.

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Injury Straight Talk

The impact of injury on the passionate athlete is huge! Injury can wreak havoc on your training schedule, or even worse, sideline you completely. But I have found that the chance of injury can be virtually elminated when you learn the basics of good running form and body use.

Most injury and running related chronic pain conditions are avoidable or reversible through efficient running. It’s all about learning how to do it, and it’s as teachable as learning to swing a golf club.

Often an injury is part of an equation – "A" plus "B" plus "C" equals pain. As an example: "A" might be excessive pounding, "B" might be the time factor such as 10 years, and "C" could be worn out running shoes. You start to have pain in your knee joint and your realize that your running shoes are worn out. So you buy new shoes and the symptoms go away. But if you add another 5 years of excessive wear and tear to the equation, new shoes might no longer help. At this point the excessive pounding in your form carries the equation into the pain. It is clearly in a runner’s best interest to address the inefficiencies in form to avoid discouraging limitations in the future.

While more traditional Physical Therapy protocol treats symptoms, and certainly has value in the resolution of injury, it doesn’t address the form issues that have resulted in the injury in the first place. Therefore this kind of approach won’t necessarily help prevent the recurrence of the same or related injury.

This is a chart of a few garden variety overuse injuries that are generated by repetitive use of the body as a result of sports training, competition. While certain traumatic injuries, such as a sprained ankle, also respond well to improved technique, the focus of this chart are injuries generated by poor technique or form.

Common Overuse Injury		Form and Body Use Problems		Posture and Structure Problems
Plantar fasciitis Generic foot pain		Holding tension in the feet. Gripping with the toes. Excessive ground impact. Excessive tension in the calves and hamstrings. Lack of full ground contact with the feet.		Anterior pelvic tilt, sway back posture.
Shins splints and lower leg stress fractures		Excessive tension in the calves. Rigidity in the ankles. Poor technique in downhill running. Tentative movement with resultant brittleness in the legs. Overuse of the calves for force production. Lack of full ground contact with the feet.		Muscle imbalance in the hips resulting in improper stabilizing at the ankle. Increased forces of pronation at foot strike as a result of internal rotation of the femur at the hip.
IT Band Syndrome		Failure to access the psoas in hip flexion, resulting in overuse of the accessory lateral hip flexors for force production – creating stress and contraction tightness in the TFL muscle.		Internal rotation of the femur. Bowing of the legs. Anterior pelvic tilt when running with resultant overuse of the lateral accessory hip flexors.
Common knee pain		Excessive pounding resulting from ground reaction overuse or excessive vertical displacement in the form. Non resilient muscle use, resulting in impacts going into the joints, over striding with concurrent breaking action at the knee with foot strike. Excessive forward bend at the waist, and bearing downward. Quadricep overuse.		Anterior pelvic tilt. Various muscle imbalance in the hips, pelvis and thighs that cause segmental nonalignment.
Achilles tendon problems		Overuse of the calf muscles to produce the forces of propulsion, i.e. overuse of bounce and toe off. Excessive toe striking having a detrimental effect over time.

I have also had success applying the Radiant Running approach to the following problems: tennis elbow, golfer elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, rotator cuff, Condromalacia Patella, meniscus injuries, sciatica, tarsal tunnel syndrome, Morton's Neuroma, bone spur, ankle sprains, plica syndrome, hip pain, groin pain, thoracic outlet syndrome, metatarsalgia, repetitive use injury, and exercise induced asthma, as well as musculoskeletal pain, soft tissue pain, knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, and shoulder pain.

Douglas,

I just wanted to thank you for assisting me in such a life changing way with my recovery. I never thought that a car accident would help me to embark upon such a positive path regarding my overall health, and I want to thank you for working with me on such an integral, life changing level.

The exercises we have worked with to alleviate pain, to develop strength and to enhance awareness of position and posture, movement, diet and emotional/physical connections has given me a solid sense of groundedness and control about my body which has made a tremendous difference in my day-to-day life.

I feel that my life habits have truly changed from the ground up!

Rhonda Miller
Advertising Manager, Silver and Gold Records