The Physio Pulse Podcast

Our last episode before christmas! Hot off the press and only a month old, published in November 2025 What can we learn about the types of sport people try to return to after rotator cuff repairs. Do overhead athletes struggle more? and what are the risk factors for failure to return to sport?

Dr. Jarred Boyd, head of physical therapy for the Memphis Grizzlies, shares his innovative approach to elite rehabilitation. He discusses how dynamical systems theory and constraints-led methods inform his clinical reasoning. Jarred emphasizes the importance of understanding movement competency and adapting training based on athletes' unique anthropometrics. He also explores the balance between precision and robustness in programming, and the potential limitations of isolation in movement training. His insights bridge elite practices and general application, making for a thought-provoking conversation.

This week James and Jeff tread the tightrope of Physiotherapy...Plenty of clowning about...A circus acrobat with 8 months of worsening big toe painWhat are your differentials? Would you investigate?How would you treat this?When does surgery become the right option?

We dive into a placebo comparison paper for the GLAD programme which has been growing over the past few years as a structured exercise approach to manage osteoarthritis.How does it shape up to open label placebo injections? What are our thoughts on the nuances of the study, and the positives / negatives of the GLAD programme?Please note, nothing in this episode is intended to be medical advice.

Explore the intriguing concept of regression to the mean and its impact on knee osteoarthritis research. Discover how natural symptom fluctuations can mislead outcomes in clinical trials. Learn about the importance of timing in participant enrollment and the role of statistical measures. A knife-wound analogy simplifies the concept for listeners, while the conversation dives into the complexities of study design and cohort selection. The duo stresses medical conservatism and the need for careful interpretation of results in patient care.

A little bit of a different episode this week! Instead of talking through a paper we sit down to discuss our thoughts on Ben Patrick, otherwise known online as 'Knees Over Toes Guy'; a hugely successful movement with the aim to help people get out of pain.Athletic Truth Group is the name of Ben Patrick's business that has emerged from this training philosophy that appears to be doing really well based off a simple message of de-threatening knees going over toes in exercise for people with knee pain.We ask: Who is Ben Patrick?How has he become so influential?What are the strengths of his approach?What are the drawbacks of his approach?How could his approach be improved?What are we doing differently now as a result of our deep dive into this approach?This was a great discussion, and one we hope you will find useful if you are unsure on your feelings about the ATG movement!

This week we discuss the 2022 Van Der Graff paper Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy versus physical therapy for traumatic meniscal tears in a young study population: a randomised controlled trialWhat are the long term outcomes for these patients between the two groups and what can we take forward to help our patients make the best choice for them?https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9304087/#s4

This week we chat through a paper that looked at surgeons answers to questions on knee osteoarthritis compared to ChatGPT. Who comes out on top?How can AI be used in healthcare?How would you fare against AI at the end of a long day?Are James and Jeff progressive thinkers or old at heart in their early 30's?Find the paper here: https://www.thekneejournal.com/article/S0968-0160(25)00065-1/abstractPlease note, nothing in this episode is intended to be medical advice.

We review a paper with 5200 participants that tried to answer how best to analyse someones risk of injury with training load.It's been making the rounds on social media, what does it actually show and how can we use this information clinically?Please note, this episode does not constitute medical advice.https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/59/17/1203.full.pdf

This week we look at the new paper "The effect of exercise time and frequency on the development of cam morphology" by M. Baldawi et al 2025 https://bmcmusculoskeletdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12891-025-08603-1What do we know about the development of CAM morphology?How do we define it?Could they be useful to athletes?