Category: Fun & Sundry

You may have noticed our clinics were recently transported back to 1999, with appearances from Ms. Frizzle, Richard Simmons, and all 17 Backstreet Boys. This year, SPEAR continued its 20^th Anniversary celebrations at our annual team-building event, “Picnic in the Park,” (PiP) with a 90s theme.

Each summer, our company comes together to participate in friendly regional competitions throughout “SPEAR-IT” week to stay connected, engage our patients, and celebrate our teammates as we continue to grow.

Company members gathered in the park shortly before the final winners are announced.

Our clinics banded together to submit theme day entries that were put to a vote for our Instagram and Facebook followers. W 44^th Street led our Liberty Region (Chelsea, W 75^th Street, and W 44^th Street) off to an incredible start, sweeping wins all week for Bust-a-Move Monday, TRL Tuesday, What-You-Wore Wednesday, and TV Thursday!

SPEAR’s W. 44th Street Clinic throwing it back to 1999 on “What-You-Wore Wednesday.”

On PiP Friday, our teammates earned points by taking over the streets of New York to challenge passers-by to cabbage patch dance-offs, start a “Friends” theme song sing-alongs on the subway, and hand out free t-shirts. The competition was fierce by the time everyone reached Central Park for lunch and games. Our Gotham Region (30 Broad Street, 70 Pine Street, Penn Plaza, and Murray Hill) pulled ahead after leading everyone through a groovy fitness challenge routine, and our W 57^th clinic had everyone on the edge of their seats with a stadium-worthy final egg toss before bumping Freedom Region (E 56^th Street, W 57^th Street, W 67^th Street, Plaza Hotel, and CityView) up another ten points. Ultimately, our Empire Region (E 84^th Street, Tribeca Park Place, Brooklyn Heights, and Headquarters) brought it home for the ultimate win after racking up over 400 points during the scavenger hunt!

SPEAR-IT Warriors hustling together during our final PiP relay race event.

SPEAR’s “Picnic in the Park” event highlights the positive and supportive culture we build our teams around so that we can uphold our promise to provide patients with the most effective and empathetic care. This year that team spirit was all the more profoundly felt as we remembered one of our most inspiring leaders and late regional directors, Jimmy Olayos, by carrying him with us throughout the day.

“Let’s have a day!” -J.O.

You can check out all our clinics’ SPEAR-it week theme day submissions and some highlights from Friday’s Picnic in the Park on our Instagram and Facebook pages.

Kari Pearce is 4x crossfit  games athlete with a prestigious background in gymnastics. Voted 2016 fittest Athlete, Kari only started crossfit a couple years ago, she has grown to be ranked #5 in the world. On this episode she’ll detail the hard work, effort and continuity that it takes to reach such an achievement!

Enjoy the 3rd episode of the season!

Steve Serio is a Paralympic Gold Medalist in the middle of a basketball game

Steve Serio is a Paralympic Gold Medalist, ESPY winner for Best Male Athlete with a disability and currently plays for the New York Rolling Knicks. After being paralyzed at 11 months old following a tumor removal, Steve would later make sure that did not get in his way. He found wheelchair basketball, worked hard and grew from it, letting it blossom into a career. On the show, he details how to embrace the journey, grow through all challenges and continue to work hard to live your life to the fullest! Regardless of the hand your dealt!

Giving Back to The Community, One Bat, Glove, and Helmet at a Time!

As SPEAR enters its 20^th year in service, a milestone we are very proud of, we stop to reflect on what is most important in life. We’ve not only grown as a company, but also continue to positively impact our local community. It is important that we give back to causes that truly align with our values. Our CEO and Co-founder Dan Rootenberg has always been passionate about baseball, as he grew up playing the sport. He also participates on the board of two little leagues and even donates his time coaching and guiding inner-city children; thus far, he’s coached more than 200 kids in the past decade alone!

With Dan’s natural enthusiasm for the sport, SPEAR’s collaboration with Pitch In For Baseball (PIFB) fit like a glove. PIFB is a wonderful not-for-profit organization focused on enabling youth baseball and softball players to play ball by helping eliminate limitations. PIFB collects much needed athletic gear and equipment and distributes them to youth ball players who may not otherwise have the means to access them. Thus far, the organization has helped more than 700,000 boys and girls nationally and globally to play baseball and softball!

CEO and Co-founder Dan Rootenberg presenting the donation to Pitch In For Baseball (PIFB)

Last year at our annual Picnic in the Park event, SPEAR pledged to donate $10,000 to the organization’s cause. Dan and the SPEAR team presented the donation at PIFB’s event on March 18^th, where thirty youth baseball coaches and several boys’ baseball and girls’ softball teams received new gear for their teams! Each baseball team acquired five leather baseball gloves and a bat, and each girls’ softball team received a pair of catchers’ gear as well.  Dan spoke to the crowd and discussed reducing injury risk through proper throwing mechanics and proper rest between outings. He also spoke candidly about his passion for the sport, his journey thus far and how honored he felt to be able to support those who love the sport as much as he does.

PIFB’s goal to continue uplifting children truly connects with SPEAR’s mission and values. The excitement and smiles on the children’s faces when they step out in the field this season is the ultimate reason behind it all. SPEAR is honored to work with such a noble cause, working to cultivate a positive and inviting environment for adolescents in the community. No child should have to hold back from immersing themselves in their passion. We look forward to the future and can’t wait to see these young athletes develop!

Our awesome team of guiding physical therapists and volunteers are all smiles at our dance injury screening!

March 23rd marked SPEAR’s collaboration with Columbia Dance Medicine on a complimentary dance injury prevention screening for the NYC community! The second of its kind, our team of physical therapists volunteered to help the dancers evaluate their strength, flexibility, endurance, and balance. Many of the advising physical therapists on site were dancers themselves, pulling from their own personal range of dance backgrounds in ballet, Horton, musical theatre, salsa, and Irish step to guide participants through a series of assessment exercises. The team also recommended effective warm-up and conditioning practices, while asking questions to better understand not only dancers’ individual habits, physicalities, and experiences, but also the unique demands of their styles and training regimens.

Ninia Agustin, PT, DPT and Clinical Director of our Plaza Hotel clinic

“Dancers are an extreme outside of the normal patient population,” says Clinical Director Ninia Augustin. Oftentimes they come in with entirely different needs and skill sets from the average patient, such as hypermobility and pointework. Their goals when pushing their bodies to new extremes, or their desires not to miss out on training opportunities, can often be unnecessarily pitted against their doctors’ and therapists’ interests in helping them take the time to recover from injuries. “Sometimes I’ll put my hat on, and I’ll say, as a dancer yes, as a PT maybe not, but maybe [we can] figure out a way to mesh the two worlds together; I think that’s what’s lacking in the healthcare industry.”  

When beginning to train at such a young age, dancers may also develop a higher pain tolerance and have trouble distinguishing soreness that comes with building strength, from potentially concerning signs like sharp pain that may indicate something is wrong. “They’re so hyper-aware of every minutiae in their body, and they…don’t necessarily have the verbiage to explain how they’re feeling,”says Dr. Julia Iafrate of Columbia Sports Medicine. This can make it all the more difficult to address potential issues before they become major injuries requiring extensive rehabilitation, or to even know what questions are most useful to consider.

A common question that arose during the screening, for example, is the minimum age at which young dancers should begin dancing en pointe (or on their toes). But as Dr. Iafrate points out, the answer often depends on many factors, including arch strength and ankle stability, that are more difficult to assess and do not consistently correlate with age categories. And while for many years, most forms of dance have incorporated static stretching into students’ warm-ups to improve flexibility, it is now common knowledge among most PTs and sports medicine doctors that static stretching, if not preceded by proper warm-up, can actually lead to more injuries.

Gwen Giffard, PT, DPT, leads a dancer through an airplane test

Upon reflecting on what she learned from the screening, SPEAR physical therapist Gwen Giffard laughed and remarked, “I learned it’s really hard to do an airplane test.”  As our PTs rose to try the exercises they had just guided the dancers through moments before, one element became clear: finding opportunities to improve communication between dancers and PTs will undoubtedly improve a dancer’s overall health, and thus the longevity of their abilities to continue on with their passion.

Our injury prevention screenings aim not only to help participants become more familiar with their own bodies, but to educate dancers, parents, and teachers. With the knowledge they acquire, they may better articulate and analyze their biomechanical inefficiencies, and thus make the most of their physical therapy sessions. SPEAR’s budding dance medicine team hopes to encourage dancers to invest in more long-term relationships with their physical therapists so that we can work together not just for recovery, but for improved prevention of major injuries as well.