I wanted to reach out to get some advise, thoughts, opinions, etc.
I am a PT currently working in an outpatient PT clinic and have been wanting my rehab approach to consist mostly of barbell training and strength and conditioning. A big part of the difficulties in implementing this is that oftentimes patients will see at least 2 of us providers (PTs and PTAs), and none of the other providers are comfortable or familiar with barbell training so there is no consistency with this. It ends up being me doing more of a consultation type approach with the barbell lifts with the patient and they do them on their own outside of PT so I can’t really coach them or program very effectively. Then there are also the post surgical patients that have to be placed in protocols that don’t allow for this type of training or if they do, not until several months post op. There’s also one’s that have been referred from a doctor that has already told them something along the lines of “no lifting” or “only light weights.” The lack of knowledge, yet very opinionated views on strength training in the rehab setting have been a major frustration since I got out of school 8 years ago and the situation has been similar in every clinic I’ve worked in. I thought I would at least learn something about about strength and conditioning and applying it in the rehab setting in PT school or at least once I was out and practicing, but I have not found this to be the case at all and has made for an extremely frustrating career thus far. Wondering if and how anyone has been able to navigate these difficulties in the PT setting as a practitioner?