Tony L.

All right, here goes with the testimonial. I wish I could say at the end that I’m fully healed, but I think it might be a while before I can say that and I’d like to share something for now. Maybe I can do an update down the road…

I’ve always been a very active person. I’ve played every sport imaginable but really focused on baseball and hockey. I was a catcher in baseball and a goalie in hockey, which is likely where some of my hip issues began.

After college, I stopped playing hockey after moving to a new city but I remained very active playing other sports, going to the gym, doing yoga, etc, and never had any major injuries. Somehow ten years went by before I finally snapped out of it and started to play hockey again. At that point I was in my early 30s and had lost much of the flexibility and mobility I’d had when I was younger so I knew in order to remain healthy I would need to focus more of my off-ice activity on training in goalie-specific ways.

A year or so into playing again, I started to experience a lot of pain in my left hip and groin. It was a creaky, achy pain accompanied by lots of popping and cracking, unlike anything I’d experienced before. As I was slowly getting more flexible through my off ice work, hip and groin injuries started to reveal themselves up until the entire left side of the joint froze. Almost all of the pain was in my upper groin but everything else felt extremely tight. My right side felt fine, but my left side began resisting all of my stretching and mobility work. My right side had always been more open than my left, but this was something different.

I started going to a PT who specialized in dry needling. We worked together for a few months trying to loosen up areas of my left hip that were completely frozen. The results were unremarkable so he referred me to a regenerative orthopedist who specialized in non-surgical approaches to issues like mine.

My time with him might be my biggest regret in that it was excessively expensive and yielded no results. I received multiple ultrasounds, injections, and other treatments with zero improvement. He recommended I get a MRI arthrogram and x-rays to confirm FAI. I did both and the conclusion was moderate FAI and a torn labrum. The recommendation from there was to jump up to the next level of injections (platelet rich plasma), which were going to be $1,000 a pop and not covered by insurance.

My frustration and helplessness at this point was overwhelming. I went home from that appointment and hopped back online looking for more options. That was when I found Matt and Shane.

Matt’s history as a hockey goalie resonated with me right away as did Shane’s past struggle with hip pain and how he improved his mobility so much that he’s able to do the splits (the dream of every hockey goalie). I bought the program and started in.

I tend to be overly organized so I created a spreadsheet with every exercise in their program. From there I created a series of three different programs each populated with different soft tissue, stretching, and reactivation exercises. I did each program for 4-6 weeks so I could become intimately familiar with each and learn the nuances of every exercise. I took notes after doing each program a few times and notes again after the 4-6 week period to track progress. After completing each of the three programs, I went back to identify the most effective exercises of each, and from there I created a series of three daily routines through which I now rotate.

I ended up taking six months off from hockey to really focus on my programs. I’d honestly say that during that time I was over treating myself, working out too often, and not listening to my body. The lack of progress became very frustrating and rather than back off, I pushed harder. I’d really banked on those six months being my healing period yet there wasn’t a whole lot to show for it by the end.

As the frustration grew, I continued to communicate with Matt and Shane, and they could not have been more supportive. I also read Stretching Scientifically, which helped guide me with how to stretch (dynamically, statically, and isometrically) and how to sequence the various other workouts I was doing throughout the week. It was during this time that I also began to really listen more closely to what my body was telling me rather than try to force it to heal. Shane and Matt have always been huge proponents of that, but I didn’t listen to that part in my early eagerness to expedite my healing.

Matt and Shane have continued to provide incredible guidance throughout the process, and they are there for all the small victories and frustrations. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’ll never fully heal especially when you have setbacks after making gains, but they are always there to adjust your trajectory and help troubleshoot.

I am coming up on the one year mark of doing the program and feel as though I am finally making some real progress. I started playing hockey again a few months ago and have noticed significant improvements on and off the ice, especially in my recovery time. It has been a slow road for me, and I likely slowed my recovery by pushing too hard and trying to force my recovery early on, but I do believe I’ll be pain free one day. My hip and groin still freeze up if I push too hard, but those times during which they feel more open than they have in years, tell me I’m on the right path.

My takeaway after a year is that this program really works if you are willing to put in the time, listen to your body, and are patient with yourself. I’ve gotta think that many of us in the FAI community have serious dysfunction and injuries that have led us to this point, so we need to accept that it can take a while to regain full functionality and unwind those old issues. The comforting thing to me is that the guidance we get from Matt and Shane is coming from two people who have worked their way through this themselves and have likely encountered all the issues we’ll ever be able to throw their way. I cannot thank them both enough for all of the time and guidance they’ve given me along the way, and I really look forward to updating this testimonial when I’m fully healed!