Canadian Aerialist uses ART in Preparation for Salt Lake City Olympics

Canadian Aerial skier, Veronica Brenner caught a tough break when she tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) of her right knee just after her 2000 Goodwill games gold medal winning performance. She had her knee reconstructed but that wasn't enough.

During her rehab she noticed some restricted motion, that was hindering her rehabilitation and would ultimately hinder her acrobatic routines. On a recommendation from her strength and conditioning trainer Kari Lansing she recruited the assistance of Dr. Dale Buchberger, an ART instructor to assess her knee. She was treated with Active Release Techniques and with in four treatments was performing the majority of her rehab and training drills without any pain or restricted motion.

Thanks to the therapeutic and biomechanical benefits of Active Release Techniques "Vee" is back training for a run at the Olympic Gold Medal in Salt Lake City 2002!

Active Release Techniques invaluable in both injury prevention, treatment and maximizing performance for the New Jersey Nets Basketball Team.
— From Dr. John Douillard

In the summer of 1999 I was hired by the New Jersey Nets as the Director of Player Development after a year of consulting. My job was to integrate the work of the strength coach and trainer while designing nutritional programs and spending 15 days a month on site doing structural rehab and therapy. I was hired in this regard because the two prior years the Nets were the number one injured team, based on games lost to injury, in the NBA. The work I did was primarily Active Release Techniques and I found myself too busy to treat all of the players as frequently as they wanted. I offered them injury treatments as well as pre game performance enhancement and injury prevention treatments. The year I spent with the Nets we were, excepting pre-existing injuries (injuries that were incurred before the season) basically injury free till which point we were eliminated from the playoff race. In fact if you remove the records of the three Nets players with pre-existing injuries, in the 1999-2000 NBA season the Nets were the third least injured team in the NBA. With a coaching and administrative overhaul in the 2000-2001, I was retained only as an on-call consultant and did no therapies during that season. During that season the Nets once again reached the top of the most injured team list in the NBA. It was very clear to the players, strength coach and trainer of the Nets that the Active Release Techniques I used were invaluable in both injury prevention, treatment and maximizing performance.

Case Study

Early in the 199-2000 Nets basketball season a player was removed from the game with a knee injury. An MRI was immediately done and a small lateral meniscus tear was found. This was on a Thursday and he was scheduled on Monday for surgery. This is a two month minimum recovery time which would hurt the player in terms of his perceived trade value and the team as he was a valuable player. When I evaluated him, I was convinced his pain was not from a meniscus tear but from a sever IT band strain. I convinced the orthopedic surgeon to let me treat him over the weekend and if I had no success he would be there on Monday morning for surgery. After one treatment using Active Release Techniques he was 50% better. He steadily progressed over the weekend and Monday night, the day he was supposed to have surgery, he played. He continued to play with a healthy knee for the rest of that season. At the end of the season he then got the meniscus operated on.

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