Heal the Injury.
Build the Body That Won't Break.
Fix Back & Neck Pain works with young athletes from grade-school recreation through varsity competition — supporting full recovery from injury and building the strength foundation that prevents the next one.
What the Research Tells Us About Youth Sports Injuries
The data is consistent across decades. Here is the case for taking youth athletic care seriously — and the case for the work we do.
The pattern is clear: most youth sports injuries are preventable, most kids who get hurt will get hurt again, and the single best protection is building a body that can handle the demand.
The Body That Performs Is the Body That Is Prepared
Young athletes push hard. Their bodies adapt fast — but when the workload outpaces recovery, soft tissue strain, joint stress, and compensation patterns develop quickly. Left unaddressed these patterns become the injuries that sideline careers before they start. We work with youth athletes before and after competition to keep the body performing at its best and recovering fully between events.
Why Young Athletes Aren't Just Small Adults
A growing body responds to training differently than an adult body. Bones often grow faster than the muscles and tendons attached to them — which is why a fast-growing athlete can suddenly feel tight, off-balance, or sore in places that didn't bother them six months ago. Programs built for adults, applied to young athletes, are how avoidable injuries happen. We adjust everything we do to where each athlete actually is in their development.
Open Growth Plates
Until skeletal maturity, the growth plates at the ends of long bones are softer than the surrounding bone. Repetitive stress that an adult tendon would absorb can pull on a growth plate instead. This is why young runners get heel pain (Sever's), young jumpers get knee pain (Osgood-Schlatter), and young pitchers get elbow pain — not because they trained too hard, but because they trained as if they were already adults.
Bone-Muscle Mismatch
During growth spurts, bones can lengthen faster than the surrounding muscle and connective tissue can adapt. The result is sudden tightness, reduced range of motion, and a temporary spike in injury risk. The athlete didn't get weaker — they got longer faster than their soft tissue could keep up. Recognizing this and adjusting training load is the difference between a productive season and a sidelined one.
Coordination Catch-Up
After a growth spurt, motor patterns that were grooved in a smaller body have to be relearned in a larger one. This is why a previously coordinated athlete can suddenly look clumsy, mistime jumps, or land awkwardly. It passes — but the weeks it takes to recalibrate are weeks of elevated injury risk that we can shorten with focused work.
Pre-Game Preparation
Manual neuromuscular techniques to activate the right muscles, release pre-competition tension, improve joint mobility, and prime the nervous system for peak output. Most sessions run 20 to 30 minutes and are timed to support warmup rather than replace it.
Post-Game Recovery
Soft tissue work, piezowave therapy, and red light therapy to accelerate recovery, reduce inflammation, clear metabolic waste from hard-worked muscles, and address any acute strain before it becomes a chronic problem. Most athletes notice a significant difference in how they feel the next morning.
What We See Most Often
The conditions that bring young athletes through our door — and that we know how to address.
Heel Pain (Sever's Disease)
The classic complaint of the 9-to-14 set in any running sport. Pain at the back of the heel, worse during and after activity, that improves with rest and returns when training resumes. We address the calf-Achilles tightness driving it, modify load, and get the athlete back without losing the season.
Knee Pain (Osgood-Schlatter)
A bump and pain just below the kneecap, common in basketball, volleyball, and soccer players going through growth spurts. The quad pulls on a still-developing growth plate. We work the chain above and below, give the tissue room to adapt, and keep the athlete competing through it when possible.
Lower Back Pain
Common in gymnasts, dancers, divers, rowers, and football linemen. Often a combination of facet irritation, hip flexor tightness, and underdeveloped deep core stability. Almost always responsive to focused manual work and a corrective program — but if missed, can develop into a stress reaction that costs a season.
Shoulder Pain
Pitchers, swimmers, and volleyball players develop predictable overuse patterns at the rotator cuff and scapula. We address the thoracic mobility, shoulder positioning, and tissue restriction driving the pain, and coordinate with coaches on pitch counts or stroke modifications during recovery.
Recurring Muscle Strains
Same hamstring. Same groin. Same calf. Over and over. Recurring strains almost always trace back to incomplete healing of the original injury, an asymmetry the athlete adapted around, or a mobility limitation that the muscle is compensating for. We find what's actually causing the cycle and address it.
Acute Strains and Tweaks
The athlete who came off the field gripping their hamstring, the one who landed wrong and is favoring an ankle, the one whose neck has been stuck since Saturday's game. Early intervention shortens recovery dramatically. We see acute issues quickly and clear them before they become chronic.
Who This Is For
Different sports place different demands on the body. We organize our work around what each sport actually asks of your athlete.
Rotational & Swing Sports
We focus on hip-thoracic separation, shoulder mobility, and the ability to generate rotational power without loading the lower back.
Endurance Sports
We focus on hip flexibility, foot and ankle resilience, and the soft-tissue recovery that determines whether high-mileage training builds the athlete or breaks them.
Court & Pivot Sports
We focus on knee stability, ankle resilience, and the deceleration mechanics that protect young ACLs from the most common non-contact injury in sport.
Contact Sports
We focus on neck and trunk strength, shoulder stability, and the soft-tissue recovery that lets the body adapt to repeated collision rather than accumulate damage from it.
If your sport is not listed, call us. If you have a body and a competition schedule, we can help.
Stretching, Mobility, and What Actually Prevents Injury
Most parents are told their kid should "stretch more." That advice is almost right, and almost wrong, depending on when and how. The research on this has shifted in the last twenty years. Here is what we actually teach the families we work with.
Before Activity: Move, Don't Hold
Long static stretches held for 30 seconds before competition have been shown to temporarily reduce muscle power output and may increase injury risk in the first few minutes of activity. Dynamic warmup — leg swings, lunges with rotation, skipping drills, sport-specific movement patterns — is what actually prepares the body. We teach a 5-to-8-minute pre-activity routine specific to the sport.
After Activity: Now Stretch
Static stretching belongs after the body is warm and the work is done. This is when tissue is most pliable, and when stretching can actually contribute to range of motion gains over time. Five to ten minutes of focused stretching after games and practices, done consistently, has more impact than an hour-long session done occasionally.
Daily Maintenance Beats Heroics
The athlete who spends ten minutes every day on the three or four mobility patterns their sport demands will be more durable than the one who does an hour of yoga once a week. Consistency wins. We design simple daily routines based on what your athlete's sport actually asks of their body — and we'll show them and you exactly how to do them.
Want a sport-specific mobility routine for your athlete? It is part of every initial evaluation.
Schedule an Evaluation →When Pain Isn't the Issue — Performance Is
Not every athlete who walks in is hurt. Some are healthy, training hard, and want an edge. Performance optimization for young athletes is not about adding more — it is about removing the things their body is fighting against.
Movement Asymmetry Screen
We assess how the athlete moves on the right side compared to the left, in the patterns their sport demands. Asymmetries above a certain threshold predict future injury — and almost every athlete has them. Identifying them lets us correct them before they cost a season.
Sport-Specific Mobility Audit
A swimmer needs thoracic rotation. A pitcher needs internal shoulder rotation. A soccer player needs hip extension. A golfer needs T-spine separation. We assess the specific mobility their sport demands and identify exactly where the limitations are.
Recovery Optimization
Young athletes recover fast — but only if recovery is treated as part of the program, not an afterthought. We teach the recovery practices that compress the time between hard efforts: sleep architecture, post-session protocols, hydration, and the small daily habits that determine whether an athlete arrives at game day fresh or flat.
Pre-Season Build
The eight to twelve weeks before a season starts are the highest-leverage window in the entire athletic year. This is when foundations get built or skipped. We work with athletes during pre-season to build the strength, mobility, and tissue resilience that the season will demand.
A Note for Parents
We know you want your athlete performing well and staying healthy for the long term. We share that goal. Sessions are structured, professional, and focused entirely on supporting athletic performance and recovery — not replacing the coaching your athlete already has. We work alongside your existing training program.
What We Don't Do — and When We'll Send You Elsewhere
Knowing the limits of our scope is part of taking care of your athlete. We refer out the moment something is outside what we should be handling.
We will refer your athlete to the appropriate specialist if we suspect any of the following:
- Suspected fracture or growth-plate injury requiring imaging
- Concussion symptoms or any head injury
- Acute trauma needing emergency assessment
- Any condition outside the scope of conservative musculoskeletal care
- Symptoms that aren't responding the way they should be
We work alongside pediatricians, orthopedists, and sports medicine physicians throughout the Eastside and have established referral relationships with the specialists we trust.
Ready to Talk About Your Athlete?
Call us and describe what your athlete is dealing with. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.
425-758-4619Mon to Fri, 9:00 to 6:00 · Sat, 9:00 to 2:00 by appointment