The Ask Mike Reinold Show

We're taught to treat systematic reviews and meta-analyses as the gold standard. They sit at the top of the evidence pyramid, so when one lands in our inbox saying an intervention works, we tend to believe it and move on. But what if that instinct is exactly the problem? A new editorial from two of the most respected methodologists in sports medicine makes an uncomfortable argument: the explosion of meta-analyses in our field has outpaced the rigor behind them. Sport-related meta-analyses now...

If you've ever programmed rotator cuff work, you've probably hit the same wall this week's listener did. You start with the classic light band or dumbbell external rotations, everything progresses nicely for a few weeks, and then it just stops. Add a couple pounds and the movement falls apart. So you assume you've maxed out what these little muscles can do and go back to maintenance mode. Here's the question we got, and it's a good one: the infraspinatus and teres minor are small muscles, so ...

If you treat young athletes, you have seen this note a hundred times. A 14-year-old gets referred for low back pain, and somewhere in the orthopedic report is the phrase "hamstring tightness," presented as if it settles the question. Tight hamstrings, tilted pelvis, cranky back. Case closed. Go stretch. It's a tidy story. It's also the kind of story that survives because it sounds mechanical and nobody stops to check it. And when you actually look at what the research says, the picture gets a...

Hamstring strains are incredibly frustrating. You get an athlete feeling great, they go for a sprint, and the muscle grabs again. We have all been there. It is the most common time-loss injury we see in running and field sports. For years, sports medicine professionals have debated whether biologics actually speed up recovery. Some studies show great results. Other studies suggest they are a waste of money. The conflicting data makes it hard to give our athletes a straight answer when they as...

Pitchers are constantly looking for the best way to recover after a long outing. Walk into any training room, and you will hear the hum of massage guns and see guys strapped to ice machines. We're seeing newer things too, like ESTIM machines and even BFR after an outing. We know pitching causes microtrauma and neuromuscular fatigue. The debate over how to properly manage that fatigue never seems to stop. A recent study finally put percussive massage and traditional ice therapy head to head. R...