Understanding Physical Therapy for Racquet Sports with Jonathan Reynolds
If you’ve spent time on the court, you know that taking care of your body is essential to keeping your game sharp. For physical therapist, avid squash player and longtime friend/customer of Michael Lynne’s Tennis Shop Jonathan Reynolds principle is both a profession and a personal passion.
As Chief Executive Officer of Orthology, which has three locations around the Twin Cities metro, Jonathan and his team of 12 other providers treat a wide variety of patients and injuries — including athletes who have sustained while playing racquet sports like tennis, pickleball and squash.
Jonathan says some common issues he sees from racquet sport players include shoulder pain, tennis elbow, dominant side hip pain and knee degeneration, to name a few.
The good news is that there are many ways to both prevent injuries and seek help for managing pain. Check out this article from the Orthology team on ways to warm up, stretch and recover without increasing injury risk (and stay tuned for more to come).
Jonathan’s Journey
Jonathan’s path to physical therapy and Orthology began in South Africa, where he grew up. After graduating high school and serving as an air traffic controller in the South African Air Force, Jonathan was trying to figure out his next steps when he came across an article on physical therapy.
“I've been a very keen athlete. I ran track in college, I played rugby, I played field hockey, I played squash, I was always playing some sport,” Jonathan said. “I thought, well, that's what I'm passionate about. And I wanted to look for a career that was going to enable me to incorporate something that I'm passionate about into my work life.”
After graduating from the University of Cape Town, he first opened a physical therapy practice there, before eventually moving to the United States and later, to the Twin Cities in 2002.
About Orthology
Jonathan says that Orthology uses a hands-on, manual-therapy focused approach that goes beyond standard exercises. Providers undergo specialized training in techniques such as soft tissue and joint mobilization and neuromuscular education.
Their focus is to not just treat symptoms, but to find and address the root cause of a patient's pain and restore function.
“A very good clinical exam is really critically important to identifying what's wrong, finding the root cause of an injury, and then going after the treatment of it,” Jonthan explains. "Many physical therapists focus purely on strengthening and agility. But if you have faulty mechanics causing muscles to be abnormally recruited, those exercises will have limited efficacy and there'll be a much steeper, uphill battle to restore that function.”
