Sports Performance
Sports physical therapy treats acute, chronic and repetitive injuries in professional, collegiate, high school and recreational athletes, and helps them get back to sport and perform better once they are there. Xcelerate Physical Therapy offers it in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, with physical therapists and athletic trainers on the team.
Sports therapy covers the whole path back to your sport
Sports therapy includes a thorough evaluation, treatment, the transition back to sport, injury prevention and performance enhancement. It is for athletes with a new injury, a nagging one that keeps returning, or an overuse problem from repeating the same motion, and for athletes who simply want to perform better.
Injuries that need their own detail are on our sports injury rehab page. This page covers the training and programs around them.
How we help athletes recover
Sports therapists often work with athletes after surgery to recover strength, range of motion and the activities of daily living. The techniques include:
Manual therapy
Specialized hands-on techniques to ease movement and restore functional control. Read more about manual therapy.
Therapeutic exercise
From active range of motion against gravity to advanced resistance protocols, rebuilding the strength you need to compete in your sport.
Heat, ice, taping and electrical stimulation
Supporting treatments used alongside the hands-on and exercise work.
Functional retraining
Every sport needs balance, movement patterns and dynamic flexibility and stability. Retraining may help pitchers recover throwing mechanics, football players with cutting, catching, throwing and backpedaling, and basketball players with jumping, shuffling and shooting.
Dynamic strength and endurance training
In later stages of rehab, athletes move to conditioning programs that closely copy what they do on the court or field.
Prevention and performance programs
The best time to see a sports therapist can be before an injury, or after you are cleared and want to get stronger.
Prevention
Interventions and recommendations that may include pre-participation evaluations, equipment advice, conditioning programs such as ACL injury prevention, and cardiorespiratory conditioning to support a safe return to sport.
Performance programs
After a thorough evaluation of your strength, neuromuscular coordination, flexibility and cardiorespiratory fitness, your sports therapist builds a training plan around your goals and the demands of your sport.
How the program is delivered
Your plan can be given to you as a training regimen to follow, or your sports therapist can coach you through it several times a week, depending on your goals and needs.
The people behind our sports care
Sports medicine experience across the team, as their bios describe it.
- Kimberly Adam, physical therapist and athletic trainer: orthopedic and sports physical therapy and injury prevention, sports medicine consultant with the Philadelphia Soul for the 2014 season and physical therapy consultant for the Philadelphia 76ers for the 2014-2015 season
- Logan Barlok, athletic trainer: covers all sporting activities at Marple Newtown High School
- Parker Brown, athletic trainer: serves Paxon Hollow Middle School and Marple Newtown High School
- Brian Joslin, owner and physical therapist: earned a Certificate in Sports Physical Therapy in 2022
- Andrew Tavernia, physical therapist: a certified running gait analyst who runs marathons and plays volleyball
For you or your teen athlete
If you or your teen athlete want to speed up recovery or maximize sports performance, we can help. See also knee pain, shoulder pain and foot and ankle pain, common reasons athletes come in, and post-surgical rehab if you are recovering from an operation.
Xcelerate Physical Therapy participates in the majority of major health insurance plans, including Medicare and Workers’ Compensation. Call before your first visit to check your plan, and see insurance for the terms you may meet.
In Pennsylvania you can see a physical therapist without a physician’s referral, but your insurance may require one: call the number on your insurance card to check, or call us before your first visit.
Sports performance care in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
Xcelerate Physical Therapy treats sports performance at our Newtown Square clinic, 214 S. Newtown Street Road.
In Pennsylvania you can see a physical therapist without a physician’s referral, but your insurance may require one: call the number on your insurance card to check, or call us before your first visit.
Meet the people who treat you on our team page.