Here’s the setting. Masters competition, clean and jerk with a  toe to bar ladder (sound familiar), 50 year old male lifts a barbell for a clean and jerk and feels a searing rip in his arm and has to drop the bar. He cannot lift his arm away from his side and is in agony, maybe had a little “bursitis in past” but nothing bad enough to stop him. Second scenario is 40ish year old 930 class filled with bunch of overachievers and...

“Shin splints” is a catch-all term for exercise induced lower leg pain. You may have noticed shin pain after WODs with a lot of jumping or running. Initially, the pain alleviates when you stop activity, but as time goes on it becomes continuous and your lower leg may become swollen. What’s going on in there? The lower leg has compartments that house muscle, nerves, and blood vessels. The muscles of the lower leg fatigue with high impact...

You step out of bed to make it to the 5:30am class and heel pain stops you dead in your tracks. That first step is excruciating, but by the time you’ve finished the warm up, the pain is alleviating. You go about your day, only to experience the same thing the next morning. Sound familiar? Symptoms of plantar fasciitis: Stiffness/pain in the morning starting at your heel and radiating to your toes Pain that gets worse when you climb stairs,...

“But I don’t play tennis”- a comment heard in sports medicine offices around the world when talking about the most common cause of elbow pain – Tennis Elbow. Lateral epicondylitis is the term that describes pain at the lateral aspect of the elbow or the part that faces forward when standing like a soldier. Medial epicondylitis is on the inner side of the elbow the part that rests against the body when standing straight. It can be...

Only someone who has had an Achilles tendon tear or Achilles tendonitis can relate to how weak one feels from an injury to this all important mythological structure that is very real in the minds of CrossFitters of all ages.  Most young CrossFitters have only read stories about Achilles heels, but as we get older which seems to be a recurrent theme in 321GoMD, the tendon does not have the same elasticity and forgiveness that it used to have and...

The hip joint is made up of the femoral head and the acetabulum. It is a very constrained ball and socket joint where the ball fits almost perfectly in the socket.  Surrounding the socket is a fibrocartilage called the labrum.  Some hip joints develop in life without good coverage of the cup and they are said to be dysplastic. Dysplasia can occur as one develops and the socket does not deepen but stays shallow. People with dysplasia can have...

Probably the most common reason to see an orthopedic surgeon in the office visit is for an ankle sprain. Why do they happen, what happens and how can we prevent them? The ankle is a joint made up of 3 bones. The lower part of the tibia (the big bone), the inner part of the fibula (the thin small one) and the talus which is the bone that flexes and extends between the other two. This makes up what is called the mortise of the ankle where bone...