Mike Stella ATC

Mike Stella ATC Pain Changed Me. Purpose Rebuilt Me. Getting you out of pain and in the game
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Rehab | Performance | Speaker
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09/25/2026

“Your MRI says degeneration, so your spine must be the problem.”

Not so fast.

Imaging is one piece of the picture. A finding on an MRI doesn't automatically tell us how serious the situation is or what the person should do next.

The same goes for stiffness after training, symptoms that change with sleep or stress, or pain that gradually improves with movement. Those details matter because they're part of the person's entire presentation.

But there are symptoms I don't want people trying to work through on their own.
New or progressive neurological changes, loss of bladder or bowel control, or saddle-area numbness require prompt medical evaluation.

That's the point of using a red, yellow, and green framework.

Not every symptom deserves panic.
Not every symptom deserves dismissal either.
Good assessment helps separate the two.

Your back doesn't need a scary story. It needs the right questions, the right assessment, and the right plan.

What back pain symptom has made you the most worried in the past?

Share this with someone who has been scared by an MRI report.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/24/2026

I think saying manual therapy doesn’t help athletes recover is lazy thinking at best.

I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve worked with enough athletes to know that rehab isn’t as simple as picking one side of the internet argument.

Manual therapy is useful.
Exercise is useful.
Load management is useful.

The question is whether you know how to put those things together for the person sitting in front of you.

When I put my hands on an athlete, I’m not trying to magically fix their body. I’m using that interaction to understand what they’re feeling, connect with them, and figure out what’s actually going on.

And then comes the important part.
We load them.

We modify their volume. We change their training dose. We build the specific adaptations they need based on their sport, their goals, and where they are in the rehab process.

That’s the combination I’ve found works really well.

And if you walk into basically any professional sports training room, you’re going to see hands-on treatment and exercise/load management being used together.

So when somebody online tells you manual therapy is stupid, pointless, or has no place in rehab, I’d be careful with that kind of black-and-white thinking.

Sometimes people have to make everything “manual therapy bad, exercise good” because it makes a much easier product to sell.
That’s not how I approach rehab.

I want as many tools as I need to help the athlete move forward.

Use your hands. Use exercise. Manage the load. Then build the athlete back up.
That’s the Hybrid Method we use at The Movement Underground.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/23/2026

“Just add another lesson.”

That's often the default answer when parents want their kid to improve.
But athletic development isn't a volume contest.

More practices, more games, more private lessons, and more repetitions only make sense when the athlete has the foundation to handle that workload.

A young athlete needs more than sport-specific skill.

They need strength.
They need Movement Competency aka general athleticism...
They need exposure to different movements and different physical demands.
They need recovery.

Otherwise, you're asking a developing body to absorb more and more of the same stress without necessarily giving it the capacity to handle that stress.

That's where the conversation around youth overuse injuries becomes important.
The goal isn't to eliminate skill work.

It's to build the athlete underneath the skill.

A stronger, more capable athlete gives those technical repetitions somewhere to go.
Before adding another private lesson, ask yourself: does my kid need more skill work, or do they need a better athletic foundation?

Share this with a sports parent who thinks more training is always better.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/22/2026

If your field sport conditioning leaves you completely destroyed every day, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re getting better conditioned.

After 20 years in athletic training, I look at conditioning a little differently.

I care about what energy system we’re training, how much fatigue we’re creating, what it costs the athlete, and whether it actually transfers to their sport.

That’s why you’ll see sprint intervals and small-sided games high on my list.

Sprint work can train speed, power, resilience, and conditioning at the same time.

Small-sided games are even more interesting with middle school and high school athletes because you can disguise conditioning as play while exposing them to the movement and skills their sport actually requires.

Sled pushes and drags are another favorite because you can build the motor while working against an external load without constantly pounding the joints.
That doesn’t mean every other method is useless.

Bike intervals can be a great option. Tempo runs can help build an aerobic base. Even HIIT can have a place when it’s used appropriately.

The problem is when conditioning becomes a competition to see who can accumulate the most fatigue.

Long-distance running is a perfect example. A long run can absolutely make you tired and improve certain qualities, but that doesn’t automatically make it the best conditioning choice for an athlete whose sport is built around repeated accelerations, decelerations, changes of direction, and high-intensity efforts.

I don’t want to train athletes to be good at conditioning workouts. I want to condition them to be better at their sport.

That’s a very different goal.

What conditioning method would you put in S tier for your sport?

09/21/2026

Manual therapy gets dismissed way too quickly.

I understand why. If someone is claiming that a few minutes of soft tissue work physically “breaks up” a muscle or permanently changes tissue, skepticism is warranted.

But that doesn’t mean manual therapy has no value.

The value can be in how the nervous system responds to touch, pressure, and sensory input.
Sometimes that creates a short-term window where someone has access to movement or range that they couldn’t access before.

But here’s the part that often gets missed: the goal isn’t to keep chasing that feeling on the table. The goal is to take advantage of the window.

Move. Load. Build capacity. Give the person a reason to keep the change.

That’s why I use manual therapy as part of the Hybrid Method, not as a replacement for exercise, strength, or movement.

Good manual therapy should create an opportunity.
Good rehab knows what to do with it.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/20/2026

“Just ice it.”

That advice has been passed around for so long that people often treat it like a universal rule.

But recovery isn't about automatically choosing rest or ice every time something hurts or swells.

In many situations, the better starting point is finding a way to move.

That might mean gentle motion after an ankle injury, a light bike ride when you're sore from training, moving other joints after surgery, or gradually rebuilding strength as capacity returns.

And there's another myth worth killing: pain isn't the requirement for an effective workout.

You don't need to be destroyed, drenched in sweat, or painfully sore to know that training accomplished something.

Good training is about applying the right stimulus at the right time.
The same principle applies to rehab.
More pain isn't automatically more progress.
More intensity isn't automatically better.

The goal is to build capacity without constantly exceeding what the system is prepared to handle.

What's one recovery or rehab rule you were taught that you later realized needed more context?

Drop it in the comments and share this with someone who still thinks “no pain, no gain” is the gold standard.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/19/2026

Your kid is watching the coach even when the coach isn't talking to them.

They see what happens after a bad call.
They see how the coach reacts to a mistake.
They see whether losing means blaming the referee or taking responsibility.
They see whether frustration gets handled with composure or taken out on everyone around them.

And those lessons don't stay on the field.

Youth sports are one of the few places where kids can learn how to compete, fail, regroup, and come back without the outcome defining them.

That's the opportunity.

A coach with a winning record who can't model those behaviors can undermine the exact life skills parents hoped sports would build.

I don't care how many trophies are sitting in the case if the kid learns that winning gives you permission to treat people badly.
The scoreboard gets forgotten.

How you taught your kid to handle adversity doesn't.

Would you choose a winning coach with poor behavior or a great coach with a less impressive record?

Share this with a parent who needs to hear it.

09/18/2026

“I'm six months out, so I'm cleared.”

That's not how I want to determine whether an athlete is ready.

Time can tell us where someone is in the calendar.
It cannot tell us whether they've rebuilt the capacity required for their sport.

I want to know whether the athlete can handle the strength, speed, cutting, landing, acceleration, deceleration, and unpredictable situations their sport demands.

Pain-free gym work is a great step.

But a controlled gym environment isn't the same as reacting to an opponent, changing direction unexpectedly, or making a decision at full speed.

That's why I prefer criteria-based progression over simply checking the calendar.
The goal isn't just to get an athlete back to their pre-injury baseline.

The goal is to build enough capacity and confidence that they can handle the demands waiting for them when the environment gets chaotic.

What do you think should matter more for return to sport: time since injury or objective testing?

Share this with an athlete working toward a return.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/17/2026

“It's my back. I just need to strengthen it.”

Maybe.

But before we prescribe a generic program, I want to know what changed.

In this case, the golfer had taken a break and then ramped his golf and filming volume back up.

That matters.

The problem isn't necessarily one bad golf swing. Sometimes the bigger issue is that the total demand increased faster than the athlete's current capacity.

That's the load management piece.

But here's where generic rehab advice often misses the athlete.

A golfer isn't just a person with back pain who happens to play golf.

Golf places specific demands on rotation, control, range, force production, and the ability to repeatedly express those qualities under fatigue.

General physical preparedness has value.

But it shouldn't be confused with sport-specific preparation.

That's why I want to know what the athlete needs to do in their sport before deciding what they need to train in the gym.

The goal isn't simply to make the symptoms quieter.

It's to build the capacity and Movement Competency required for the actual demands waiting for them.

Would your rehab program look different if it was built around your sport instead of your diagnosis?

Share this with an athlete who keeps getting handed the same generic rehab program.

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

09/16/2026

Rest or load?

That’s not a question with one answer.

The mistake athletes make is treating rest like the default solution for every injury.

Sometimes rest is absolutely the right call.

A fresh fracture, significant instability, acute swelling, or a hot and locking joint needs a different level of caution and may require medical evaluation.

But persistent pain doesn’t automatically mean the body needs more time on the couch.

In many cases, the goal is to find the highest level of activity the athlete can tolerate and gradually build from there.

That’s the difference between avoiding a problem and building capacity around it.

Good rehab isn’t about being reckless with an injury.

It’s about understanding the tissue, the symptoms, the stage of recovery, and the demands you eventually need that athlete to handle.

Rest when the situation calls for protection.

Load when the system is ready to adapt.

The goal isn’t rest or load.

The goal is knowing **when to use each one.**

Which side do you think athletes get wrong more often: resting too much or loading too soon?

📍The Movement Underground | Long Island, NY

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