We chat with Dr. Andrea Spiker about hip preservation - starting with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). Dr. Spiker is dual fellowship trained in sports medicine and hip preservation. She is the Program Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Orthopedic Surgery Sports Medicine Fellowship Program. Dr. Spiker has published extensively on the topic of hip preservation and was recently named anAJSM editor for hip, so we’re very excited to share her expertise with you!

On Ask the Sports Docs, we answer some of the most common questions we get from our patients and podcast listeners. Today’s conversation focuses on an area of sports medicine that we get asked a lot, despite us being surgeons: “What nonsurgical treatments can I do to rehab my musculoskeletal injury as well as improve my performance and prevent reinjury?”

We dive into the evidence on the following nonsurgical modalities:
✳️ Kinesiotape
✳️ Sports massage
✳️ Acupuncture

On this Overtime episode, we’re diving into a topic that we haven’t discussed before on this podcast — the medico-legal side of sports medicine. Specifically, the malpractice liability exposure for team physicians.

We review an article from the February 2025 issue of AJSM titled “Malpractice Liability Exposure and the Sports Medicine Team Physician: Caring for Professional Athletes in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and National Hockey League.”

It is a Reboot Special with one of our faves - Dr. Brian Cole! Today’s episode is going to focus on osteochondral allograft transplantation, and specifically how basic science research can and should impact your clinical practice.

Today we’re talking about pickleball – the fastest growing sport in the United States. From 2019- 2021, the number of pickleball players increased from 3.3 to 4.8 million. The reason for the growth of the sport is likely multifactorial, including that it encompasses a wide variety of age ranges, it is easy to understand and it is inexpensive to play.

Today, we’re talking about graft choice for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and specifically how that impacts psychological readiness to return to play. Now, we’ve spoken extensively about ACL injury on this podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the use of tranexamic acid or “TXA” for rotator cuff repair surgery. First, what is TXA? If you’re not an arthroplasty surgeon or a traumatologist, you may not be as familiar with this medication. TXA is drug that inhibits the enzymatic breakdown of fibrin blood clots, also known as fibrinolysis. By doing this, TXA stabilizes the thrombi, or blood clots, and thus decreases bleeding.

On this #overtime episode, we’re talking about postoperative rehabilitation after combined medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) reconstruction and tibial tubercle osteotomy (TTO) to treat recurrent patellar instability — specifically whether conservative versus accelerated rehab impacts outcomes.

Today’s Ask The Sports Docs is going to focus on a question we get asked a lot: What can I take supplement-wise to improve my healing and outcome after an orthopedic injury or surgery?

As we reflect on an incredible year of growth for our podcast, we’d like to take a moment to thank our amazing listeners, guests and supporters for making this podcast such a success! 

Our podcast has been downloaded in over 60 countries, is in the top 25% of @buzzsprout podcasts and is again ranked in the top sports medicine podcasts 📈

🎙️ We are very excited to see what 2025 has in store!

As we reflect on an incredible year of growth for our podcast, we’d like to take a moment to thank our amazing listeners, guests and supporters for making this podcast such a success! 

Our conversation picks back up with an article published in the December 2020 issue of Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine titled “Surgical Management of Massive Irreparable Cuff Tears: Superior Capsular Reconstruction.”

On today’s episode we’re focusing on challenging rotator cuff pathology with Dr. Patrick Denard, an orthopedic shoulder surgeon at the Oregon Shoulder Institute. We have some great articles for you that contribute well to our conversation on the treatment options for massive reparable, as well as irreparable, rotator cuff injuries.

In this episode, we’re going to continue our discussion with Dr. Aaron Krych and focus on surgical advancements to address meniscus extrusion and optimize postoperative outcomes for patients.

On today’s episode we’re focusing on medial meniscus root repairs with Dr. Aaron Krych, Chair of Orthopedic Surgery and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. We have some great articles for you that contribute well to our conversation on the optimal treatment of medial meniscus root tears, including recent advancements in surgical technique to optimize outcomes. 

We’re continuing with our favorite topic today – ACL tears – but today’s episode is going to focus on risk factors for ACL tears. Specifically, which of these risk factors can we modify to lessen the chance of sustaining ACL tear and how do we decrease that risk.

Today we’re talking about SLAP tears – tears of the superior labrum from anterior to posterior. We have two great articles for you today that focus on the surgical management of SLAP tears – specifically whether we should be repairing SLAP tears or proceeding directly to biceps tenodesis. We will also discuss the different types of biceps tenodesis procedures – mainly arthroscopic suprapectoral versus open subpectoral.

Today, we’re talking about hamstring injuries in the NFL. And if your fantasy team is anything like my fantasy team, it currently looks like an infirmary. So, you’ll probably want to listen in to this episode.

We are reviewing a new study just published this month in AJSM that focused on how player characteristics, injury severity and imaging findings can impact the amount of time missed as well as risk of recurrent injury.  The article is titled “Correlation of Player and Imaging Characteristics with Severity and Missed Time in the National Football League Professional Athletes with Hamstring Strain Injury.”

Today’s Ask The Sports Docs is going to focus on one specific question that we get asked a lot from patients, and review a recent article that came out about this topic. We both use cryotherapy and cryo-compression therapy postoperatively after our knee and shoulder surgeries.  Many of these devices are unfortunately not covered by insurance, and therefore require patients to pay out-of-pocket.  A question we get asked all the time from our surgical patients is: “Is this worth it?” Basically, do cryo-compression devices offer a significant benefit compared to a bag of peas? Is the cost worth it?

Today, we’re focusing on common injuries in the NFL and how these injuries impact time missed and player performance once athletes ultimately return to play. This is something that each NFL team looks at carefully when evaluating rookie prospects before draft day.