Category: Education

Spear is expanding further into the Upper West Side: introducing our newest clinic on 92nd St!

Located at 2465 Broadway between 91st and 92nd Street, our newest location is now open and accepting appointments, providing a new opportunity to reach even more New Yorkers! Spear’s Upper West Side – 92nd St clinic was created out of a need to serve our community. This brand new location allows us to allocate more appointments and reach more patients in need of the best therapy around!

Spacious and modern, this new space has everything our clinicians need to continue providing the best physical and occupational therapy in town. With many shopping and restaurant options nearby, including Trader Joe’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and The Mermaid In, and just a short walk from Central Park, it’s a perfect addition to the neighborhood!

Alyssa Reyes, PT, DPT is the Clinical Director of Spear’s Upper West Side – W 92nd St clinic. Her passion for the profession stems from receiving an overwhelmingly positive experience in rehab for a rotator cuff injury in high school. She has experience in outpatient sports and orthopedics, outpatient neurology and geriatrics, pediatrics, inpatient acute care, and inpatient acute rehabilitation settings. Alyssa’s overall goal is to make a lasting impact on NYC’s community by helping patients to regain function and increase their self-confidence.

UWS – 92nd St is now accepting appointment requests! You can do so right here online or by calling us at 646-829-2299!

At Spear, we are always looking for ways to share our knowledge and expertise—that’s why we created our career workshop, From Classroom to Clinician: The Final Lesson!

Our Classroom to Clinician workshop is an amazing opportunity for physical therapy and occupational therapy students to learn about how to transition into their full-fledged careers. Last Saturday’s event was the first we held in-person since the pandemic. Hosted at our gorgeous, newly built Grand Central clinic, the workshop was a perfect opportunity for students to meet with our talented team members for mentorship and networking opportunities. A virtual live-streaming option was also available for those who weren’t nearby or able to attend in-person, ensuring all students were able to participate no matter the circumstance!

The workshop featured various helpful components to assist participants in this transitional period of their careers. One helpful component of the event was our resume building workshop, where each student received a one-on-one resume coaching session with one of our hiring managers. Gaining insight from clinicians already in the field provided an unparalleled opportunity for attendees to learn the best practices for landing that first job after graduation.

Our leaders also held an interview session, providing best tips on how to nail the interview portions of job searching. Working directly with the leadership team, and opening the floor for questions and inquiries, provided the participants with real-life advice and information easily applicable in their near-future application processes.

Thank you to all of our participants for attending! We’re elated to have the opportunity to provide students with the resources, connections, and information they need to be fully prepared for their shift from student to clinical career.

Missed the event? Keep a lookout—our spring session date will be public soon! You can sign up to be notified when the event goes live by visiting our Eventbrite page, and by following us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn!

Summer is heating up: the world has got its eyes on the 2020 Olympic games starting this month. Our very own CEO and Co-founder, Dan Rootenberg, jetted off to Japan to continue his work with the Israel national baseball team as their official physical therapist!

Team Israel is up against some of the biggest players in the world, with a need to be physically ready to perform at optimal levels for the international sporting event. Holding a true passion for baseball, Dan is excited to be able to help rehab and guide the all-star players. “It’s just about putting these professional athletes in the best position to be successful,” he says of the importance of his role.

Dan has been involved with the team since 2012, during the World Baseball Classic qualifiers. He also offered his attention and rehabilitation skills at the 2017 World Baseball Classic in Seoul, South Korea, helping the players by providing strength and conditioning and physical therapy guidance. “I played in the Israel baseball league, a pro league in Israel in 2007. My first son, Jack, was just born. I went out there and the relationships that I established there, that’s where a lot of this really came from. It started there during that league,”  Dan recalls of his time. “The manager of the team, Eric Holtz, was a good friend of mine. Nate Fish [Third Base Coach] was another guy—we all played together. Shlomo [Lipetz], who’s a pitcher here, was a teammate of mine; Peter Kurz, who’s the general manager— his son was a teammate of mine. There’s a lot of personal connections here, and it’s amazing to see how much the sport of baseball has grown.”

Growing up playing baseball, Dan has maintained an elevated level of excitement, passion, and fervor for the sport. The love of the game has translated into more than just playing—he has also participated on the board of two little leagues and donates his time coaching and guiding inner-city children, coaching more than 200 kids in the past decade alone! He has collaborated with Pitch In For Baseball (PIFB), pledging a sizeable donation to the organization to purchase baseball and softball gear for underprivileged youth players.

SPEAR is always passionate about giving back to our community. Our teammates have amazing empathy, one of our core values, and are often looking for ways to contribute their knowledge where it is needed most. Our team is heavily involved with the youth community, particularly working with local little league baseball teams to offer free screenings to the youth players to ensure a smooth (and fun!) season. Partnering with local youth athletes is just one way we like to give back to the community. We even had our own teammates participate in the exhibition games: Tom Barcia, PT, DPT, ATC, and Clinical Director of our Midtown- W 44^th St clinic, joined Dan during the team’s exhibition games to get them properly warmed up and ready for some practice games.

SPEAR has been involved in the treatment of Team Israel players in the past as well. “We’ve treated a number of players in our SPEAR facilities; different physical therapists on the team have worked with a lot of these guys,” Dan recalls. “It’s nice to have that continuity because then they come here, I can talk to the therapist that treated them and then have a continuous program for them…it’s helpful to be able to take whatever they’ve been doing in the clinics, pair it with what they have to do on the field and then help them here…really it’s just about putting these professional athletes in the best position to be successful.”

Team Israel is up against some big contenders this summer: the United States, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea. Currently ranked 24^th in the world and 7^th in Europe, the team is the competition’s endearing underdogs. The full roster consists of 12 pitchers, 3 catchers, 6 infielders, and 3 outfielders. The world’s got their eye on second baseman Ian Kinsler, former MLB all-star, who played for 14 seasons for the Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Boston Red Sox, and San Diego Padres. The Summer Olympics are bound to be a hot one! Team Israel’s first match kicks off next Thursday, July 29^th, against South Korea.

“Nobody expected us to be in the Olympics,” Dan says. “The fact that we’re there is pretty incredible in and of itself, and we’ve got a lot of a lot of high hopes about coming back with a medal.”

We are so proud and honored to have Dan there representing the field of physical therapy and its vital importance in the competition and the overall health and safety of the athletes.

Here’s a teaser of some awesome content we got on the pipeline, sure to be a home run:

All smiles: SPEAR teammates are full of joy and SPEAR-IT!

SPEAR is known for top-notch physical and occupational therapy treatment, but we’re also known for another value we’re very proud of: our culture. Lovingly referred to as our “SPEAR-IT,” this whimsical embodiment of our combined passion, energy, dedication, and unity is at the forefront of everything we do. That’s why we celebrate our people every summer at our ‘Picnic in the Park’ event. This year we had some fun, endearingly naming our company retreat “SPEARFEST,” and appropriately so, for it was a day filled with palpable comradery and love amongst all of our teammates!

An annual event, last Friday’s companywide event differed from our picnics of the past. It was not just a fun day in the sun, nor just a day to host some friendly competitions. SPEARFEST this year marked our first collective gathering companywide—with the necessary cancellation of the event the year prior, and not having been together for over 19 months, this event was an opportunity to be together once again. 350 of our teammates gathered to celebrate just that: our collective synergy and the chance to be united again, despite the challenges we’ve all faced this past difficult year.

Together again, we celebrated our synergy, collective teamwork, and the opportunity to be a little closer to a state of normal. The event was created with our people in mind: a day to relax, kick back, and enjoy each other’s company.

Leading up to the event, we held our well-known ‘SPEAR-IT Week’ across our social platforms. Consisting of different themed days, ‘SPEAR-IT Week’ is an opportunity for all of our clinics to build excitement for the big event. With 21 clinics sprinkled across our boroughs and into Westchester, it’s not often we can have all our teammates together under one roof. With the cancellation of our All Hands Meeting (our companywide meeting created to celebrate our clinics’ successes and discussion for continued growth), it was even more essential to build connection and engagement between our clinics and regions.

Human Pyramid by LIC – CityView

Penn Plaza on Twinning Thursday

Of course, we had to up the ante, too, by stirring in some friendly competition: each clinic had the chance to submit photos and videos with our Theme Day challenges to earn points towards the coveted SPEAR-IT Week Champion title! Clinics within each region uplifted one another and helped garner votes from family and friends via social media comments and likes in hopes of having their region crowned winner, to be announced at SPEARFEST! ‘SPEAR-IT Week’ was rockin’, with our teammates creating incredibly synchronized choreographies, building human pyramids, filming insane music videos, and dressing in coordination. The fun could not be contained! (Pssst…if you missed our team’s amazing submissions, check them out on our Instagram and Facebook pages!)

SPEAR-IT Week continued with a city-wide Scavenger Hunt (if you were in Manhattan, you might have encountered one of our own asking you some silly questions or capturing funny moments!), ending right at the start of our SPEARFEST event. Held at The Armory Foundation’s indoor track & field center, the gigantic space was jam-packed with leisurely activities for everyone to enjoy. This event was created to be a fun and enjoyable day, to build comradery amongst our teammates, to celebrate our wins, and to relish in the sheer joy of being together again.

SPEAR Teammates having some Cornhole fun!

Duck and Hide in full effect!

There’s nothing like a professional ‘Simon Says’ Champion to get the crowd excited!

It was also an opportunity to celebrate all the hard work our team has put in throughout the year. All together under one roof, we took the opportunity to hand out some well-deserved awards and prizes. We revealed our leaderboards numbers, which are numerical stats on how our clinicians performed this year, on a huge Jumbotron screen. With award categories ranging from Review Rockstar, to Patient Commitment, and our highly respected SPEAR Impact Award, we wanted to acknowledge our people’s hard work and reward them for their dedication and tenacity, especially through one of the toughest times the city has ever been through. It is important to acknowledge those who go above and beyond for others, for they are true leaders! CEO and Co-founder Dan Rootenberg also presented the Armory Foundation with a $20,000 donation to be used towards the non-profit organization’s mission to serve NYC youth by promoting fitness and education through a broad range of athletic, educational, and community programs.

SPEAR CEO and Co-founder, Dan Rootenberg, presents donation to The Armory Foundation

The rest of the day was just fun and games—literally! With gigantic versions of Jenga and Pac Man, an inflatable wrecking ball, a life-sized Twister board, and even a professional ‘Simon Says’ champion present to administer the game, the stadium was roaring with laughter and good vibes. And that’s what it’s truly all about—providing a fun, synergistic experience for all of our teammates who so deserved a breath of relief from a long year.

Thank you to the entire team for bringing their all to the profession every day, for continuing to put patients first, and for always helping to support one another. Together, we can do it all.

Our Freedom Region, the crowning champions of SPEAR-IT Week, share the coveted trophy prize!

The SPEAR Team!

With the onset of the pandemic, life changes and everything else going on, it’s safe to say many people have been feeling stressed. People are constantly looking for ways to get rid of worry, which can also manifest as tension in the body. Enter: massage guns. A popular trend, massage gun ads, videos and informational posts have been sprouting up all over the internet. The question is: do they actually work? Our very own Ashley Rozek, PT, DPT, CSCS, and Clinical Director of our Grand Central – 3rd Ave clinic, and Donald Zerio, PT, DPT, TPI LII,  is here to help bring some truth to light, recently contributing her knowledge to a CNN article exploring this very topic!

While massage therapy often noted to be very beneficial for recovery, it’s not always an accessible option for all. Especially during the middle of the pandemic, where social distancing was necessary, many people turned to other options to be able to alleviate those tight knots and pains in their muscles. Naturally, handheld massage guns became a easy solution.

Donald says these popular massage guns work just like a foam roller: “They do work in the same sense that foam rolling works. It is another method of soft tissue mobilization that provides the benefit of loosening up tight muscle tissue, which provides a feeling of relief and provides a short-term improvement in flexibility.” Donald also points out that you can easily injure yourself with a massage gun if not used correctly, which can worsen your situation. His advice? Talk to your PT! “We tell our patients to bring in their massage guns to a physical therapist so we can demonstrate how to use the different percussion heads and vary the depth and speed for specific muscle groups.”

While Ashley also believes these massage guns are good for recovery and pre-workout, she stresses: “it is important to come see a physical therapist and learn how to safely and correctly use the gun on your body so you can effectively use it at home.” It’s always best to get professional advice from a physical therapist to ensure you’re occupying the right tool for your specific needs.

Have questions about whether or not to get a massage gun? Contact one of our physical therapists for help!

To read the full article on CNN, click here!