On Monday, I had the opportunity to meet with Darwin Fogt, MPT and President of Evolution Physical Therapy. We got to chat a little about how he is using the AlterG in his practice. He has a beautiful facility in a penthouse suite across from the Los Angeles Clippers practice facility. You can read more about him at his website @ www.evolution-pt.com. The following are some excerpts from our conversation:
Q: Thanks for meeting with me Darwin. I appreciate you taking the time out to assist AlterG in learning how we can help private practice owners take advantage of all the benefits our anti-gravity treadmill can provide. So how long have you had your private practice and how long have you had the AlterG?
A: I’ve been in practice for about 8 years, initially at another location. We moved to this facility several years ago, when the space became available. It was actually built out already for a spa, so it was the perfect fit for us with locker rooms and an open layout. I got the AlterG in this facility about 1.5 years ago.
Q: How did you know that AlterG was a “must-have” for your PT clinic?
A: As soon as you get on an AlterG, you understand what it does. And for any clinician, that will allow you to begin thinking about how you want to incorporate it into your rehabilitation sessions.
Q: How many patients use your AlterG and what types of diagnoses do you use it with?
A: At the current time we have about 8-10 patients on it a day and about 1-2 cash paying clients on it a day. Obviously most Lower Extremity (LE) patients will benefit from time on the AlterG, but we have also found it very helpful with lumbar microdiscectomy patients and we even have a patient with cerebral palsy using the AlterG.
Q: That’s great. So from a clinical perspective the AlterG makes sense. Something both you and I know because we’ve been on it. Another set of questions we are getting is from the business aspect of being a practice owner. How about from a business standpoint? Has AlterG helped you at all on that side of the practice?
A: The AlterG has provided opportunities for me to market to physicians when I contact them to discuss its benefits for their patients. I treated a physician after he had a lumbar microdiscectomy and now he’s a big believer and advocate of the AlterG. I have also had some exposure for the clinic through local media coverage and will be doing an interview with Triathlete magazine tomorrow. It’s interesting when people see us volunteering at a race or other event and they come up and say ‘Hey, aren’t you the guys with the AlterG?’ It’s definitely created a little association/recognition for us with the public.
Q: That’s good to see that you are getting some recognition for having an AlterG. One of our goals at AlterG is to become a standard in physical therapy practice. So the association between having an AlterG and that facility being focused on excellence in clinical care is something that we want to encourage and that reputation is something that we will help owners with. Now lastly, what advice would you give to other practices having questions about purchasing the AlterG?
A: I think once you experience it, the AlterG makes sense. Clinically, it’s easy to see how patients would benefit from the treadmill. We’ve been able to see it help different patient populations at our facility. We gained some recognition from the public for having one. And we’ll continue to use it to market to different groups that we couldn’t otherwise. With the barefoot running trend, for example, we can let people adjust carefully and progressively to that in an AlterG. This could help protect those that are overzealous from running to any pitfalls or obstacles along the way.
I want to thank Darwin again for taking the time to meet with me. It is always a pleasure to talk with other clinicians about their practice philosophies and to get their input about how AlterG is serving them and their patients.
If you are interested in being featured on this blog, please contact Jacon at jacon@alter-g.com.
The Gift of Running | Week 2
“Run one mile on my own”
Why? Well, besides the fact that I’d like to be able to run if someone or something was chasing me, I have always felt that, if I could run, it probably meant that I was at or close to being back to 100% functionality on my left side. This past year was no different. On December 31st, 2009 after 7 months on the AlterG , I went outdoors to the back yard to try to run on my own. I’d like to say I that I had a breakthrough moment and magically ran on my own. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far. After several tries, I just had to stop and acknowledge that, while I was close, it just wasn’t going to happen. Thanks to all the training on the AlterG, I was able to get solid push-off from my left foot and ankle, and my coordination seemed to be better than in years past, but I couldn’t seem to get my quick reflexes to move my leg through to the front fast enough. Overall, I just wasn’t able to achieve a safe gait at any speed beyond walking. My pesky drop foot wasn’t helping matters as I had to take my mind off lifting my foot in order to give the rest of my limbs their own movement commands. It all seemed to be happening too fast for my left side to keep up. The result was some kind of strange gallop and a fall to my knees after only a few paces. After several exhausting attempts, I had to admit that I had once again failed in my goal to run on my own.
The only thing left to do was to go back to the drawing board and to modify my training plan for the next year to continue to strengthen my hips, legs, foot and ankle and to continue to run on the AlterG to train my fast reflex action times.
I decided also, that I have been spending too much time running at lower weights on the treadmill. Though the lower weights are comfortable on the joints, they aren’t getting me closer to my goal, so I plan to methodically lower the weight ratio over time until I am running at 100% of my weight.
The recovery process has taught me a lot about patience, but I still have a lot to learn about the subject. This will be hard for me but I’m going to try to make this a slow and methodical transition by lowering the weight ratio by small amounts and running more often. This past week I ran three times and experimented with different weight ratios and speeds with a plan to run consistently at the 50% weight ratio.
For the first two sessions, I started at 40% for the first part of the run and moved to 50% during the second part of the run. I definitely felt the difference, mainly in my endurance level. I was able to clear my foot and keep up the pace, even at higher speeds, but I felt, and breathed a lot heavier. I felt pretty good on day one and was able to push my speed to 9 mph on the final mile. A feat I would not be able to repeat during the week.
During the second session, I decided to change things up a bit and try some minor interval training by running between 6.5 mph and 7.5.mph at one minute intervals. While not a lot of difference in speed, I found it challenging to activate my fast reflexes. I noted that I had a more lasting return in both proprioception and sensation in the day or two after the run. It seems that the harder impact from the lowered weight is producing results that last beyond my run time which is pretty exciting progress.
I feel pretty confident that I can push my limits net week and head straight from 50% to 55% weight ratio.
Week 2 Progress:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Next Week’s Goal: Move consistently to 55% body weight at varying speeds.