LISTEN ON APPLE | LISTEN ON SPOTIFY | LISTEN ON STITCHER
LISTEN ON AMAZON | LISTEN ON GOOGLE
Episode #54: Full Achilles Tendon Rupture with The Physio Fix’s Dr. Stacie Barber, PT | A Surgical approach to rehabilitation & return to gymnastics & competitive weightlifting
Tearing your Achilles tendon is a major injury that may require surgery. While some people can recover from an Achilles rupture without surgery, some will require surgery in order to return to highly ballistic and plyometric sports like gymnastics and olympic weightlifting.
Stacie Barber, PT is a physical therapist, nationally competitive weightlifter, recreational gymnastics, and PT practice owner of The Physio Fix sustained a full rupture of her Achilles tendon at her first annual holiday party. While this injury was devastating emotionally and physically, it did not happen during her chosen sport, but rather during a Ninja Warrior holiday party!
After the shock of the injury wore off, Stacie connected with an orthopedic surgeon regarding her options for recovery. Just three days after the injury Stacie underwent surgery and returned to work two days later. The main factor in deciding to go the surgical route for the Achilles rupture was that there was a 9 cm gap between both ends of the torn tendon and no overlap when she was put in full plantar flexion. This meant that there was little opportunity for the tendon to heal itself.
In this episode of the PRS Podcast, Dr. Stacie Barbell shares the story of her recovery after the surgery, how she continued to train and maintain her strength the whole time, and the process by which she returned to olympic weightlifting and gymnastics after the Achilles rupture with surgery.
In this episode of the PRS Podcast, we discuss:
What clinical factors lead to the decision to have Achilles rupture repair surgery
How her post-op protocol for Achilles surgery varied from the typical protocol and why
Footwear and assistive devices for Achillies repairs and how they helped/hindered
Complications she experienced after the surgery and the process to address them
How she continued to train without interruption post injury
Kneeling & seated lifts to continue to train olympic lifts
How long it took and how she progressed to get back to full ROM, heavy power and olympic lifts
The timeline and progression for reintroducing gymnastics
The importance of asking for help
Insurance processes for covering the pre-surgical imaging, surgery, and assistive devices post-op
The benefits of going out-of-pocket for post surgical return to sport physical therapy
How this surgery changed Stacie as a clinician
Dr. Stacie Barber is the founder and owner of The Physio Fix, which was established in 2017. Stacie received her B.S. in Exercise Science from Illinois State University in 2011 where she was also an NCAA student-athlete, earning several honors in the sport of gymnastics. After undergrad, Stacie went on to become a strength and performance coach, furthering her knowledge of exercise prescription and implementation before pursuing her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree which she obtained from Duke University in 2015.
As a former collegiate gymnast and current Olympic Weightlifter, Dr. Stacie has had her fair share of orthopedic injuries and surgeries (11 surgeries to be exact!), so she understands how detrimental an injury can be for an athlete at any level. Therefore, she spends a lot of time with patients analyzing their movement patterns, identifying deficits, and improving body mechanics to not only fix the current problem but to also prevent further compensations and degeneration.
Get in Touch with Stacie!
@ThePhysioFix on IG
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
10 Minute Tip #29 - 4 Tips to Keep Barbell Training After Leg Surgeries or Injuries
The Physio Fix Achilles Protocol Program (for purchase from The PhysioFix)
Stacie’s Achilles Rupture & Repair Blog (1 full year on Youtube)
IF YOU’RE ENJOYING OUR PODCAST, PLEASE LEAVE US A REVIEW ON APPLE OR SPOTIFY.
Need help with an injury or programming? Book a free consultation call with one of the PRS Clinical Coaches here!
Interested in attending some of the free PRS community events and getting early access to PRS Podcast episodes? Sign up for our weekly newsletter here!
Join our Facebook Community for free form checks, live Q&As & more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PRS.Barbell.Mastery
Got questions or guests you'd like to hear on the show? Submit them here: https://forms.gle/7Vu2HmgHoeQY9xM59
Check out the Clinical Barbell Coaching Institute to learn more about the PRS education opportunities! https://bit.ly/43VjRFz
GET IN TOUCH WITH THE SHOW!
Email: podcast@progressiverehabandstrength.com
Rori IG: @rorimegan_prs
Alyssa IG: @alyssahope_prs
Bre IG: @breannejulia_prs
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:00] Alright, welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, here with a very special person, Stacie Barber. Some of you may know her as The Physio Fix on Instagram, but we're not talking about treatment or your business. We're actually talking about you and an injury that you sustained. So, you're a doctor of physical therapy, you're a practice owner, and you're an Olympic weightlifter / gymnast. You had a pretty serious injury in the last year and a half ish. We're in our foot and ankle month here at Progressive Rehab & Strength on our podcast, so we wanted to speak with you about your experience as both a clinician, a rehab clinician, and an athlete who sustained an Achilles rupture and went through with having a surgical repair. We actually did also interview a unique scenario, a physical therapist and competitive powerlifter who had a full rupture without surgical repair, so we're interested in kind of getting both your experiences as an athlete, but with the physical therapy background behind it. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your background, your hobbies, and your family life.
Dr. Stacie Barber, PT: [00:01:32] Alright. Well, thanks, Rory, for having me. I know we've obviously been friends for a long time, but I've never been on your podcast, so it's a pleasure. My name is Stacie. My former last name, which some people still know me by, is Maurice, but my new last name for the last three years now is Barber. I am the owner and the founder of The Physio Fix, which is a physical therapy and sports performance facility in Phoenix. I was a solopreneur for the first three years of my practice and then kind of opened up a brick and mortar the last three years. We're celebrating our three year brick and mortar facility anniversary in September, so very exciting. We've got like six team members now, physical therapists on the staff, which is huge. My background is basically that I was a gymnast my whole life for 18 years, with a full college scholarship. Everyone sustained a ton of injuries throughout gymnastics, as it's just kind of part of the sport. Then I kind of got into physical therapy school. I went to Duke University, and that's when I kind of fell in love with the strength side of things.
Dr. Stacie Barber, PT: [00:02:35] I started doing burst bodybuilding and then I was like, this is cool, but I didn't really like how crazy people were on stage and how restricted they were. I just didn't feel like it was for me. Then I found powerlifting next and I competed in a few different powerlifting competitions. Then I found Olympic weightlifting, and from there I kind of fell in love with the sport and how technical it was. That's kind of what I've been doing ever since. I've been doing Olympic weightlifting for ten years now at a very high level. I've qualified for the American Open finals three times now. I've never been able to actually compete in the American Open finals, and I was going to actually compete this year, but I am now pregnant. Some people may know we've been trying for four years now, so this is super exciting, so I'll just have to qualify next year and then compete next year. No big deal.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:03:27] No big deal. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about your weightlifting background and have you ever sustained any injuries with weightlifting?
Dr. Stacie Barber, PT: [00:03:39] You know, I have sustained little things here and there. I would say that when I was first new to powerlifting, I was that person that didn't always know which volume to be training within. Then I would always try to max out, which is stupid, and my back would always kind of bother me. My back would just ache and ache for what I swear was weeks after I would heavy deadlift. I wouldn't say that was a true injury, but I would say that was definitely hindering my progress when I was a power lifter. I also had a little bit of shoulder stuff that would flare up, but I had three shoulder surgeries previously from gymnastics. When I was first starting to bench press, just trying to get the technique down and trying to make sure that I was really tight and stable, that would kind of bother me from time to time. But no true injuries with the sport of either powerlifting or weightlifting, which is kind of normal. I mean, I know that you might get weightlifters knee or any of that stuff, but these things aren't usually very traumatic and they're not very serious that they need surgical intervention. So, I just kind of trained through them.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:46] Yeah. And I think it's interesting, you know, because people look at barbell sports and just say they're so dangerous, right? You're going to get hurt and whatever. But relative to other sports, even my past history is dance and triathlon and yours is gymnastics. And you said, you know, oh, you'd have some shoulder aches or pains from it but never major injuries. It's because you had three injuries that led to surgery from gymnastics, so just looking at the relative safety of barbell training, whether it's weightlifting or powerlifting compared to other sports, is pretty significant. But interestingly, you did have to undergo a surgery related to this Achilles rupture, so tell us a little bit about the rupture, how you sustained that, and was it related to barbell training?