Publications & Sites 
Buffalo Grove’s Athletico Physical Therapy is ready for New Year’s mishaps
Athletico Physical Therapist James Rabbitt demonstrates a stretching exercise with rehabilitation aid James Bakun, a Buffalo Grove resident. | Michelle LaVigne ~ Sun-Times Media
WORKOUT TIPS
Carlstrom and Rabbitt offered a few tips for both athletes and office-dwellers hoping to avoid the need for physical therapy:
• Raise computer monitors.
“Almost everyone has their monitor too low,” Carlstrom said. “The head is a pretty heavy appendage, on top of a pretty thin stalk.”
• Stretch your hamstrings.
“Stretching your hamstrings can resolve a lot of problems,” Rabbitt said.
Updated: February 4, 2013 6:01AM
BUFFALO GROVE — The first months of every year can be a busy time at physical therapy centers.
With New Year’s resolutions motiving people back to the health club, plenty wind up in places like Athletico Physical Therapy.
“We all think we’re 22,” said James Rabbitt, manager of the local Athletico facility at 601 Deerfield Parkway, inside the Buffalo Grove Fitness Center.
Rabbitt explained that sometimes the newly inspired or even the seriously athletic, and anyone in between, push themselves a little further than what their bodies are ready for.
“Whatever their personal limitation is, we isolate it and develop a treatment plan,” he said. “You’re seeing an athletic population, you’re seeing the geriatric population, you’re seeing middle age.”
And Athletico is now also seeing pencil-pushers as the Midwestern chain recently developed an ergonomics program for “workplace wellness.”
“People assume ‘my back hurts, I need a new chair,’” said Andrew Carlstrom, Athletico’s ergonomics and job analysis program manager. “The chair may not be the problem. I can put a person in a $1,500 chair, but if they’re slouching, nothing’s going to help.”
Athletico, founded in 1991 in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, opened its 3,200-square-foot Buffalo Grove location in October of 2011. The center offers physical therapy to patients upon physicians’ referral.
Rabbitt reported that he and his two other physical therapists have been serving a steadily growing number of clients — currently about 100 a week — and he said he is thinking about adding a fourth therapist this year.
Rabbitt said he has not seen any injuries or strains appearing to be more prominent in Buffalo Grove than any of the group’s 70 other locations. He treats clients 12 years old to 87. He also lectures fund-raising groups before running season begins with preventative care.
But when prevention fails — or is ignored — athletes become Rabbitt’s clients. He said that in just more than a year in Buffalo Grove, he has already seen several complicated cases leave as successes.
“It’s very gratifying,” Rabbitt said. “The last day, they’re literally jogging out the door. It makes you feel a little better about the career you’ve chosen.”
