Sports Medicine

At Balance Physical Therapy we help dedicated athletes, college and high school athletes, and “weekend” athletes alike improve their game and recover from injury. We’ve worked with every sport; including soccer and rugby, football, basketball, lacrosse, wrestlers, runners, tri-athletes, tennis players, golfers and more. We are athletes ourselves; playing rugby, competing in Triathlons, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking and sailing. We welcome the opportunity to customize a program for you!

If you injure yourself while playing a sport, it’s extremely important to promptly consult a sports medicine clinician. A timely evaluation of your injury may prevent you from developing a more serious injury. At Balance we have Masters and Doctorate level Physical Therapists, certified Strength and Conditioning specialists and certified Athletic Trainers who work as a team to help you get back to the field as quickly as possible. All of our expertise is brought to bear on your treatment, helping you to return to your sport safely and quickly.

Injury Prevention - Numerous studies indicate that certain exercises will not only prevent common sports-related injuries but improve your speed, agility, power and overall performance. We have developed comprehensive programs that are proven to reduce injury and improve your performance, plus techniques for minimizing shoulder and back injuries. Knee and ankle injuries are extremely common in athletes who play soccer, lacrosse, football, basketball, baseball, rugby, volleyball, and tennis, as well as athletes who ski. Women athletes are 3-8 times as likely to incur a knee or ankle injury in their respective sports as male counterparts. Proper training is proven to reduce such injuries. At Balance, we teach you these exercises.

Chris Pierce has presented on the topic of ACL Injury and Pediatric Shoulder injuries at the Magic City Sports Medicine Conference, and to New Hampshire Association of Physical Therapists (NHAPTA) on ACL injuries in the female athlete.

Customized Sports Strength and Conditioning

We create programs to train athletes to be quicker, faster, stronger, smarter, better and less prone to injury. We customize our sports training to encompass your particular goals. We incorporate nutritional consultation, injury prevention and body mechanics training in a series of practical sessions that take place on or off the field. These sessions include:

• Initial evaluation of strength and fitness level
• Education on proper dynamic warm-up and stretching
• Basic strength and cool down exercises
• Education about common movement errors that lead to non-contact injuries
• Methods to prevent non-contact injuries
• Balance training with a focus on your awareness of position, posture, movement and changes in equilibrium
• Jumping and Landing techniques
• Agility training and education in proper cutting and turning form to prevent injury and maximize quickness
• Plyometrics: starting with low intensity and progressing to high intensity
• Speed Training

You will learn to integrate these and other exercises into your training to maximize performance in your specific sport.

Team Sports Fitness Sessions

We can deliver our strength and conditioning programs to accommodate multiple athletes. We’ve trained entire teams and even combined teams. During these training sessions we maintain a low instructor to athlete ratio to ensure thorough training and observation. Current programs include:

• 1 on 1 training onsite at Balance Physical Therapy in Windham, NH
• 6-8 week Team Sports program with athletes at your designated facility
• Small groups of 4-6 athletes at Balance
• Level 1 Beginner
• Level 2 Mid-Level (Completion of Level 1 Required)
• Level 3 Pre-Expert
• 2-3 sessions with coaches focusing on specific programs that fit your needs such as injury prevention, dynamic warm-up and functional training.