Thanks to the American College of Sports Medicine for their about-face on what’s in store for fitness in 2014. Enter high intensity interval training, or HIIT. For a growing number of fitness enthusiasts, this news isn’t surprising. Why?

Because the folks who have been doing HIIT regularly know the benefits. They see the change in body composition when they look in the mirror. Their belly’s are trim. Their muscles are defined. And they don’t huff and puff when taking the stairs up, the trash out, or the hike higher.

The accompanying article has some great information on HIIT, including the benefits. If you’ve been longing for a fast, effective, and efficient way to get maximal results, this one’s worth the read. Check it out.

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Next year, your workout is going to get a lot more intense. Once the domain of fitness fanatics, high-intensity interval training is poised to hit the mainstream in 2014, according to a new survey from the American College of Sports Medicine.

To read the rest of this informative article, click here.

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And to help you create a plan and get started doing HIIT today, I invite you to watch my YouTube video from our Alpine PT website below. Clearly from the image captured below, I got a bit excited to share this with you!

Alpine Physical Therapy announces that owner Brent Dodge, PT, OCS, CMPT, CSCS completed advanced training and received national certification in Functional Dry Needling.

Alright. Let’s cut to the quick. I gotta share the exciting news about my time spent in Colorado for advanced training recently. The advanced course was far beyond what I’d imagined. Having been in clinical practice for 22 years, I’ve seen a lot of great treatment approaches come and go. We continue to use the good ones, like spinal manipulation, intelligent movement, and core stability training. Yet I’ve not seen a game changer on the level of Functional Dry Needling. I’ve provided well over 500 treatment sessions and have witnessed life-changing results in many of my clients. The advanced application of this form of treatment, which I competed in Brighton, Colorado, is yielding even greater results.
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Several more of our team of therapists are marking their schedules to work toward their certifications. Alpine is once again at the forefront of new and meaningful technology. It’s our way of bringing the best forms of physical medicine to our beloved Missoula!

​Beer me!
Sure, but first you’ll need to lift either 75, 95, or 115 pounds as many times from the ground to full lockout overhead within a total of five minutes.

And that’s just the first of three work outs that were slated for the fundraiser for X-sports 4 Vets on behalf of Vets. The event, hosted by CrossFit Emergence and Tamarack Brewing Company took place Saturday, April 27th, at Caras Park. All proceeds of the $50 registration fee went to X-Sports. So with over 100 CrossFit athletes participating, there was a substantial amount of funds raised on behalf of  our Vets.

The second workout was even harder. In 10 minutes, row 1,000 meters, then jump off the rower and in the remaining time, find and do your 5 rep max dead lift. Whew! Now if that’s not enough (and it was), you then reset your bar with 95 pounds and do as many rounds in 6 minutes of front rack lunges x 10 followed by 10 hand release pushups. Killer!
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Brent Dodge, PT of Alpine Physical Therapy will testify in a heart beat that work out number two was indeed a killer. The picture below shows a smiling Brent . . . BEFORE said workout. We deleted all pictures of his facial grimace that he donned following the event!

His face was a bit brighter when after doing 76 reps in five minutes with 75 pounds (a total of 5,700 pounds), Brent discovered that he placed 11th in work out number one!

For participants who were still alive and kicking, the third work was a seven minute workout consisting of three movements. First, squat clean 155 pounds four times, then do six 24-inch box jumps, then do 15 jump rope double unders. The aim was to do as many rounds of these three movements in seven minutes. Killer. Double killer!

Upon completion of each of these three work outs, you can now guzzle a delicious brew available ring-side by Tamarack Brewing Company. Burp! Double burp!
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Special thanks to Tamarack Brewing Company and to David Johns, owner of CrossFit Emergence in Missoula for the amazing work they did to make this meaningful fund raiser possible!

Practitioners have been using thin-filament “dry needles” to rid people of pain and to improve performance for nearly half a century. Physical therapists in the state of Montana have been approved to perform this treatment for just over a year.

The notion of having a needle placed into your sore muscle may seem counterintuitive. You might ponder whether a treatment approach like this adds insult to injury. Before making that leap, however, use the information provided on our webpage and the video link below to disconnect the dots between these types of needles . . . and pain.

Alpine Physical Therapy has pursued advanced training in this new technology. Currently, 3 therapists at Alpine are trained. According to Alpine’s owner, Brent Dodge, “The results we’re seeing are startlingly positive and consistent, to the point (pun intended) that we’re pushing to get all 12 of our physical therapists trained to do dry needling.”

Continuing, Dodge says, “It’s not a stand-alone treatment, but in conjunction with the advanced services we offer at Alpine, our patients are seeing and feeling the results. The word is out, and people are asking for this form of treatment.” “It’s effectiveness has proven itself with challenging neck and back pain, headaches, joint pain, tendonitis, and muscle and sports injuries . . . along with numerous other conditions”

For a brief overview of dry needling, click here to view our new webpage on the topic.

You are invited to call our offices for more information at 251-2323 (south) or 541-2606 (north).

Success Story: Alpine Physical Therapy, Missoula, MT

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Since its introduction nearly three years ago, the CoreAlign has been making a serious splash in the rehabilitation field. Nowhere is that more evident than at Alpine Physical Therapy  in Missoula, MT.

Samantha Schmidt, PT, a long-time Pilates-based rehab practitioner at Alpine PT, first tried the CoreAlign at Balanced Body’s Pilates on Tour Rehab Summit in April 2009. “As soon as I got on it I immediately felt in my own body the potential this could have on my patient’s body. I knew it could be a great tool to teach proper movement to those stuck in compensatory, dysfunctional patterns.”

As soon as she got back to Missoula she met with Brent Dodge, PT the owner of Alpine. They immediately began making plans for Sam to start working toward Master Instructor certification. After that was accomplished they then turned their sights on the rest of the Alpine PT staff. Dodge also began his CoreAlign training. “We both knew this was going to change the landscape of our business,” said Dodge. “It’s such a phenomenally effective tool for functional movement, gait training, strength training and balance.”
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For the rest of this informative article, click here to visit Balanced Body University’s COREterly newsletter, Summer 2012.

Poor balance makes for poor fishing. I saw this first-hand while spay fishing for monster Steelhead last weekend. Even wearing steel-studded felt-soled wading boots, I was faced with severe “snot-like” conditions while wading the slippery rocks along the river in pursuit of a monster Steelhead.

Notably, my friend Dale who is only 3 months younger than me has NOT been doing CoreAlign exercises twice weekly for the last 11 months. He proved known science that by age 50, balance and strength tend to bolt downstream.

Together, Dale and I fished the Hog Hole, the Slaughter House Hole, and the Bridge Hole (among others). And then we fished a spot where the rocks were unusually slimy. Snot was clearly an understatement!

We’d just begun making a few casts, when all of a sudden, I heard Dale just downstream from me splashing frantically. When I looked over, all I could see of him were the bottoms of his wading boots kicking feverishly above the water’s surface. Just as I was ready to throw him a life line, he righted himself and safely (yet fridgidly) made his way out of the 36 degree water. We aptly named that new fishing spot the “Swimming Hole!”

Unfortunately, this was just one of the major falls Dale took during our trip. All told, he slipped and fell dangerously at least 5 times. And whereas it was nearly impossible for me to stay sure-footed a lot of the time, my balance and confidence were nearly laughable. I felt like a surfer looking for a bigger and more radical wave. In some cases, it was futile for me to even try to maintain my footing. Instead, I was seemingly in a mode of controlling a series of near-falls while still making 70 foot casts with ease.
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This feat (pun intended) could never have occurred had I not been guided through a powerfully effective form of exercise, called CoreAlign, for the last 15 months by the skilled and knowledgeable instructors of The Core Studio at Alpine.

I plan to fish hard till I’m 90. To do so, I’ll need to incorporate hour-long CoreAlign sessions twice weekly over the next 40 years. This new model of exercise constantly challenges balance while also developing long and strong muscles. Resultantly, I’ll be able to keep up with the young bucks and avoid having to spay fish wearing a snorkel and with my ankles pointing vertically!
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For more information on CoreAlign, click here.

Discomfort and other symptoms at work is a warning sign to seek information, advice, and help sooner than later. I could write pages on the subject. Over 2o years as a physical therapist, I have a keen interest in helping workers feel better and actually have a life at the end of the work week.

​Rather than having you take time to read the ins and outs of how to help yourself prevent these problems at work, I encourage you to sit in on my video wherein I discuss the ins and outs of the topic. In it, I lay out very clearly the potential problem, why it can happen to you, and what you can do to prevent problems . . . problems that continue to negatively impact peoples’ health and wellbeing over the course of a lifetime.

​For more information on this topic, be sure to visit my clinic website by clicking here.

What do you get when you add one burpee everyday for 100 days? First of all, what the heck is a burpee?

To begin, stand tall and then jump horizontally onto the ground onto your hands, using your arms to slow your fall. After your chest meets the ground, quickly push up with your arms, pulling your legs fully under you. Then jump up and clap your hands as your feet leave the ground.

(To see a quick video of a person doing a burpee, click here.)

That’s one. Ready to do another one?

Now that you’ve done one today, you merely need to add one (for a total of two) tomorrow, three the next day, and so on . . .  up to 100.

This is known in some circles as the “100 day burpee challenge.”

When you’ve added one burpee a day for 100 days, you will end up doing 5,050 burpees. Interestingly, the half way point in terms of volume occurs on day 72. That means that for the last 28 days you end up doing as many burpees as you did from day one to day 72. Wild.

I did my first burpee challenge back in 2009. Notably, when I got up to about 85, I went to China for a couple weeks. While in Kunming, China, the burpees were super hard to do because Kunming is at about 8,000 feet above sea level. You can hardly catch your breath enough to string about 20 burpees together.

However, you’ll never guess where I was on day 100. Hong Kong! Doing 100 burpees at sea level is almost enjoyable. Well, not really. But it was way easier to string a lot of burpees together while doing them at sea level.

Earlier this year, four people started a 100 day burpee challenge. Two of us will complete our 100th day this coming Saturday. We only made one change in the burpee challenge this year, and it was my bright idea. Our goal was to do each day’s amount of burpees unbroken, meaning without stopping. Yeouch! Now that we’re in the high 90s per day, we’re sort of wishing we hadn’t set that as a goal.

Why would anyone want to do a 100 day burpee challenge? Boredom? Insanity? I still haven’t figured that out. I did find that my conditioning levels are at a new and higher level. My physique has changed markedly too. Along with greater definition in my arms and legs, my abs and torso are much more defined than they were nearly 100 days ago. And if anyone asks me to jump down and get up quickly 100 times, well, I can pretty much do that too!

Heck, you don’t have to do the burpee challenge, but you may want to throw some burpees into your workout to kick up the heat now and again.
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I’ll post again once I determine that I didn’t die while attempting to do 100 unbroken burpees this coming Saturday, the final day of this burpee challenge!

All too often, I hear patients tell me that the pain in their knee must be from arthritis. Then they explain what makes their pain worse, which often defines that their pain is not from arthritis but more likely from other causes. For example, I got a letter from my cousin, who was told her knee pain was from arthritis. After she explained her symptoms, it was clear she was dealing with the pain from a knee cap issue . . . and not solely from knee arthritis.

Here’s what my cousin emailed to me:

I was wondering if you can recommend something for my knee. I have been diagnosed with early stages of arthritis. It has been bugging me for over two years, and now it hurts to go down stairs. I have been doing a lot of hiking and have lost thirty pounds hoping that would help! Are there any exercises, supplements, or a brace that will help heal or prevent more issues?

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Here’s my reply:
From what you’re telling me about your symptoms, I get the feeling the issue isn’t arthritis but more likely a knee cap tracking issue (called Patellofemoral Tracking Dysfunction). This can be easily corrected with a special sleeve that you wear on your knee called a “patellofemoral brace.”

If I’m right, and you were able to get the right help (to include a knee brace like I mentioned), you’d likely be able to resume your activities without pain. From a clinical standpoint, the exercises are a bit complex to describe in an email. Let me point you in the direction of two documents. One is on knee cap problems. The other is on knee arthritis.

Read through them, and let me know which seems to fit your situation the best. The approaches are quite different for the two conditions.

1. Knee cap problems

2. Knee osteoarthritis

Once I know your answer as to which one fits the best, I will be better able to guide you.

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Her reply after reading these two articles made it clear that her pain was coming from problems with her knee cap. Along with having her increase fish oil intake to 2,000 mg per day, I advised her to purchase a Kuhl Shields knee brace.

When you spend a lot of money to learn a new method of helping relieve pain . . . and it works . . . you get pretty excited and want to tell the world. That’s all fine and dandy, but talk to me in a year. Is it still all it’s cracked up to be?

My answer to this question was “Heck Yeah.” In fact, the Basic course of Primal Reflex Release Technique (PRRT) which I took in ’05 helped me ten-fold in helping my patients get better, faster.

Great. Talk to me about how it’s working in another year. Better yet. I spent the time and money a year later and went to the Intermediate course. Again, my results soared to even greater levels. So much so that in ’07, I again spent way more money and time to complete the Advanced level of Primal Reflex Release Technique.

As with each of my progressive level courses in PRRT, the results I got in the clinic afterwards were superb.

Thus, I used these ever evolving techniques in the clinic for another four years.

Fast forward to April 2011. That’s when I attended another course taught by the developer of PRRT, John Iams of Poway, California. Only this class was on the level of Star Wars. In fact, it was titled “Beyond Advanced. John made the class available to all the 150 advanced-trained practitioners across the globe. No way was I gonna miss this class.

Why? Because John has taken the last 4 years to continually research and develop his techniques . . . to the point they are thrilling to practice, particularly when you see the results day in and day out as I do with my patients.

People with lots of pain . . . get better. People  with complex pain . . . get better. Not all the time, as it’s not a panacea. But it works profoundly well in a host of orthopedic conditions, such as back pain, neck pain, headaches, tendonitis, and joint pain . . . among others.
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Take a moment and watch my brief update on all that’s new with PRRT at Alpine Physical Therapy.

For more information on PRRT, visit my clinic web page by clicking here.