Physical Therapy: Some Reasons for Concern
New evidence reveals unfair influence of elastics manufacturers
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Ever since this page broke the disturbing news about Pickleball, whistleblowers have been sending us tips of foul play in the wellness/personal improvement space. This week a leaked memo from a prominent elastics trade association confirmed what we’ve long suspected: a wide-ranging and inflexible relationship between stretchy-band manufacturers and physical therapists. Below is the memo in its entirety, redacted to protect the identity of the few brave practitioners who have stood up against the Stretchy-Band Industrial Complex.
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Dear Therapists,
As you are well aware, sales of light-green, red, forest-green, and blue stretchy-bands have declined markedly in the last quarter. It is therefore with utmost urgency that we convey these revised treatment protocols so that we might together stem the erosion of stretchy-band sales and related stock prices in which all of us are so deeply invested.
1. Going forward, exercises that were heretofore prescribed as “stretchy-band optional” are now “stretchy-band mandatory.” Though patients may insist hip thrusts, calf raises, neck rotations, bird dogs, etc. can be completed without the assistance of a medically prescribed stretchy-band, updated evidence-based guidelines clearly show improved performance for exercises performed with stretchy-bands. This is supported by a study.
2. It has come to our attention that some patients believe it is possible to skip the intermediate forest-green stretchy-band and proceed directly from red to blue. Please inform patients espousing this “theory” that just as the now defunct Soviet Union was unable to jump from feudalism to communism without first passing through a bourgeois capitalist phase, so, too must patients pass through light-green, red and forest-green to proceed to blue. This protocol is also supported by a study.
