Alpine Physical Therapists Leah Versteegen and Jessica Kehoe are reached out to the Missoula Soccer Community at the Missoula Strikers Academy opening season training sessions.

These two talented physical therapists, and former Division I College Soccer Players, are working with the young 8-11 year-old soccer players participating in the Strikers Academy on an age-appropriate dynamic warm-up and will teach them proper form with soccer specific plyometric drills to aid in injury prevention.

Jessica and Leah will be joined by star Alpine aide, John Prugh, also a former collegiate and professional soccer player. They plan to continue this outreach later in the Spring with the Missoula Strikers Club Soccer teams ranging from U-11 to U-18. Alpine will also continue to welcome all members of the Missoula Academy and Strikers Soccer Communities to any one of the 3 Alpine clinics for a free sport-specific injury consult.
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For more information on soccer medicine at Alpine PT, click here.

As Spring soccer ramps up, the Missoula Strikers organization welcomes two local physical therapists and former coaches back on the field to teach our young athletes a proper dynamic warm-up and some plyometric drills that have been proven to help decrease the rate of non-contact ACL injury on the field. 

Jessica Kehoe and Leah Versteegen from Alpine Physical Therapy were joined by Alpine aide and U18 assistant coach John Prugh last week at the Strikers Academy opening week of practice. They ran a 10 minute dynamic warm up and provided a basic introduction to plyometric form for the 8-12 year olds participating in the Academy.
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Over the next several weeks, these three Alpine crew members will be showing up at practices for each of the Strikers teams to educate their players and coaches on the dynamic warm-up and age appropriate plyometrics for injury prevention. The program they will teach has been adapted from the Sportsmetrics Program (out of Cincinnati) and PEP (out of Santa Monica) programs, both of which have been shown in the latest research to reduce non-contact injuries in soccer players.

The long term goal is for all kids participating in the Strikers program, including Academy, to be able to reproduce this warm-up prior to all practices and games. The coaches will provide the most assistance and feedback to the younger players so that by the time they reach the U16 to U18 level, the players will be mostly on their own. The dynamic warm-up will be the same for all age groups, while the plyometrics will increase in difficulty as the players move up in age. Coaches, parents, and players can check out the link on the Strikers page to help remind them how the dynamic warm up is run.

Alpine Physical Therapy will also be offering free player consults for Micro, Academy, and Strikers athletes. Jessica and Leah will be able to see these players day of injury in order to help determine what they need to do to manage their injury, whether the need is for rest and ice, PT treatment, or a visit to the doctor. As former Division I college soccer players, Alpine’s representatives know what it takes to be a competitive soccer player and will help get these young athletes back on the field with better form, strength, and control.
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For more information on Alpine’s work with area soccer players, click here.

Alpine Physical Therapists Leah Versteegen and Jessica Kehoe will be reaching out to the Missoula Soccer Community next week at the Missoula Strikers Academy opening season training sessions.

These two talented physical therapists, and former Division I College Soccer Players, will educate the young 8-11 year-old soccer players participating in the Strikers Academy on an age-appropriate dynamic warm-up and will teach them proper form with soccer specific plyometric drills to aid in injury prevention.

Jessica and Leah will be joined by star Alpine aide, John Prugh, also a former collegiate and professional soccer player. They plan to continue this outreach later in the Spring with the Missoula Strikers Club Soccer teams ranging from U-11 to U-18. Alpine will also continue to welcome all members of the Missoula Academy and Strikers Soccer Communities to any one of the 3 Alpine clinics for a free sport-specific injury consult.
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For more information on soccer medicine at Alpine PT, click here.

Alpine Physical Therapy has always been interested in playing an active role in the support of Missoula’s sports community. With the opening of Missoula’s first ever indoor soccer field, MISA or Missoula Indoor Soccer Arena, is poised to attract numerous area soccer enthusiasts.

Alpine kicked it into high gear to be a certified sponsor of this highly-anticipated facility. Alpine is available with information on soccer-related injuries and rehabilitation as well as offering free Physical Therapy consults to MISA members!
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MISA is housed within the Steven Valentine Community Center at 2811 Latimer, just across from Pacific Steel. For more information, visit the MISA website by clicking here.

Introducing Missoula’s first-ever indoor soccer arena and the first of its kind in Western Montana! Missoula Indoor Soccer Arena, or MISA (www.MissoulaIndoor.com), swung its doors open on Saturday, September 14th. The place was packed with happy smiling faces from 10 AM to well beyond 4 PM. Several soccer groups competed throughout the day, all the way from younger teams to men’s 5 on 5. Alpine Physical Therapy is a proud and major sponsor of MISA!
No matter where you are in the facility, you get a great view of the playing field. Notably, the turf on the field is the same used in Washington-Grizzly Stadium! Way cool.
You can pretty much see our huge 4 x 8 dashboard logo from everywhere within the MISA facility, which boasts our major sponsorship of this incredible Missoula venture. Take a look in the pic below to see that we captured the best possible spot for our dasher board logo.

Alpine Physical Therapy has begun a partnership with Missoula Strikers FC for this spring season.  Two of our PTs at Alpine, Jess Kehoe and Leah Versteegen, have put together education materials on appropriate dynamic warm up, injury prevention, as well as fitness testing and training specific for youth soccer.

Our goal is to help this local youth program develop its players for maximum performance and decreased injury rates.   Jess is heading up the effort getting to practices to teach the coaches and the players how to properly warm up with dynamic stretching.  In addition, the players and coaches will learn how to perform strength and jump training with good mechanics to decrease risk of injury, most specifically rupture of the ACL, a common knee injury in soccer.

Leah has been spearheading the educational materials for the fitness testing and training schedules, which are integral to preventing overtraining and common overuse injuries.   John Prugh has also been helping us in all these areas.  We hope this partnership lasts for many years to benefit our local kids and help to continually improve the soccer program here in Missoula.
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For more information on Alpine’s sport outreach for soccer, visit our clinic web page on the topic by clicking here.

With the arrival of Spring in Missoula, the youth soccer season is now in full swing! As mentioned in earlier blogs, Alpine Physical Therapy has recently teamed up with the Missoula Strikers soccer club.  Along with offering free 15 minute consultations to all Strikers players, Alpine personnel will also presenting a short “injury-prevention and proper warm-up technique” sessions to the Striker’s coaches.

One of our PT’s will attend each team’s practice and take the players through a 20-30 minute warm-up session while educating the coaches and players on proper jumping technique, running form and warm-up techniques that will help prevent ankle, knee, and other lower extremity injuries.

Additionally, Alpine is developing a training periodization model to guide coaches on the amount of volume and quality of the soccer workload the players are subject to through the course of a season.  The soccer scene in Missoula is booming, and Alpine Physical Therapy is actively interested in helping with this growth!
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For more information on the services we provide to area soccer players, please visit our sports webpage by clicking here.