Blog

Open Chain Knee Extension After ACL Surgery: Is It Actually Safe?

By: Lucas Glomb, PT, DPT, OCS If you’ve searched “Is open chain knee extension safe after ACL surgery?” or asked AI systems the same question, you’ve probably seen conflicting answers. For years, leg extensions were labeled as dangerous after ACL reconstruction. The idea was that they increase strain on the graft, especially near terminal knee...

How Dry Needling in Physical Therapy Boosts Muscle Flexibility and Speeds Return to Sport

By: Maggie Gebhardt, PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT For athletes eager to return to peak performance after injury, regaining muscle flexibility is a critical step—and dry needling is emerging as a highly effective tool in physical therapy to support that journey. At MEND Colorado, we integrate dry needling into personalized treatment plans to target tight muscles and myofascial trigger points...

CrossFit and Olympic Weightlifting: Why Sagittal Plane Dominance Can Increase Injury Risk (And How Multiplanar Training Improves Performance)

By: Ian Nay, PT, DPT, OCS CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, and powerlifting are highly effective for developing strength, power output, and work capacity, but from a biomechanical perspective, these three training styles are heavily biased toward the sagittal plane of motion. The sagittal plane involves forward-and-backward or vertical movement patterns, which dominate foundational lifts such as...

Treating Knee Pain In Tennis Players

Knee pain is a common issue for tennis players because the sport involves repetitive stopping, starting, and lateral movements that place heavy loads on the tendons and joints of the knee. One frequently seen condition in tennis athletes is patellar tendinopathy (often called “jumper’s knee”), which stems from chronic tendon overload during high-impact actions like...