Clinical Guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines for sports rehabilitation.

A growing resource library organized by athlete status: performance conditioning for healthy athletes, Return to Game Readiness for late-stage decisions, and injury rehabilitation guidelines organized by joint.

12-Skate Framework Return to Game Toolkit Browse Injury Guidelines
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Built for clinical decision-making.

Organized by athlete status. Written with criteria, timelines, loading progressions, and sport-specific return-to-play considerations in mind.

Guideline Library

Organized by athlete status

Start with the decision in front of you: healthy performance preparation, late-stage Return to Game decision-making, or diagnosis-specific injury rehabilitation.

Conditioning Framework Return to Game Calculator Shoulder Hip Knee Ankle
Resource Pathways

Choose the pathway that matches the athlete's status.

This keeps healthy performance preparation separate from late-stage Return to Game decisions and diagnosis-specific injury rehabilitation.

01

Performance & Conditioning

For healthy, medically cleared players preparing for training camp or the start of the season.

Open 12-Skate Framework → 02

Return to Game

For medically cleared athletes participating in full practice while still building toward game readiness.

Open Readiness Toolkit → 03

Injury Rehabilitation

Diagnosis-specific guidelines organized by Shoulder, Hip & Groin, Knee, and Ankle.

Browse Injury Guidelines →
Performance & Conditioning

12-Skate Hockey Conditioning Framework

A four-stage, 12-skate progression for healthy, medically cleared junior, college, and professional players preparing for camp or the start of the season.

Designed for: full ice, timing or coach control, scored competition in every session, and a 60-minute session ceiling.

Open Framework Download PDF Guides
12-Skate Hockey Conditioning Framework timeline preview
Stage 1Speed FoundationSkates 1-3 Stage 2Repeat the SpeedSkates 4-6 Stage 3Build the ShiftSkates 7-9 Stage 4Camp ReadySkates 10-12
Stage 1 PDF Stage 2 PDF Stage 3 PDF Stage 4 PDF
Scope note: This is a performance resource, not an injury-rehabilitation protocol. It should be used with healthy, medically cleared athletes and adjusted based on readiness, response, and team policy.
Featured Toolkit

Return to Game Readiness

A fillable clinician toolkit and completed fictional example for reviewing workload, response, confidence, role, contact, and shared progression after full-practice clearance.

Clinical use note: Use after the athlete is medically cleared for full practice while game clearance remains a separate decision.

Open Clinician Toolkit Open Completed Example Use Live Calculator
Return to Game Readiness clinician toolkit preview
Downloadable PDFs

Two resources built to work together.

The fillable toolkit gives clinicians the structure. The completed fictional example shows how the reasoning looks in practice.

Fillable clinician toolkit PDF preview
Fillable Clinician Toolkit

Return to Game Readiness Clinician Toolkit

A 9-page fillable workflow covering scope, personal healthy reference, session exposure logs, TRIMP context, 12-week trend worksheets, and shared progression decisions.

View PDF Download
Athlete A completed fictional example PDF preview
Completed Fictional Example

Athlete A: The Readiness Story

A 10-page example showing how workload, response, confidence, role, contact status, and shared judgment can be reviewed after full-practice clearance.

View PDF Download
Live Toolkit Calculator

Return to Game Readiness Calculator

This calculator mirrors the worksheet logic from the Return to Game Readiness clinician toolkit. It calculates session dose, optional Edwards-style TRIMP, TRIMP per minute, weekly totals, and recent-to-prior context. It does not create medical, contact, or game clearance.

Source-of-truth rules used here: sRPE load = ice minutes x session RPE. Zone-weighted TRIMP uses the Edwards-style five-zone example from the toolkit. Recent:prior uses current 7-day TRIMP divided by the mean of the previous four completed weeks, only when the same method was used.
01

Session exposure

Enter the current hockey exposure. Required dose fields come first. Add HR fields only when the capture and method are reliable.

HR

Optional HR-informed pathway

Use this only when the HR device, HRmax, zones, platform, and TRIMP method are consistent.

The toolkit's Edwards-style example uses weights 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The 80-89% zone crosses the 85% threshold, so minutes above 85% should come from the monitor export, not from this broad zone split.

02

12-week TRIMP trend

Enter weekly totals. The recent-to-prior calculation stays blank until four prior completed weeks use the same TRIMP method.

Week Sessions Ice min sRPE AU TRIMP AU Min >85% Data status Clinical response / hockey context
03

Shared progression decision

Complete after reviewing current exposure, personal reference, recovery, confidence, contact, and hockey context.

Stop and assess flags

Select any finding that should stop automatic progression and prompt clinical reassessment.

Clinical boundary:

Use this after medical clearance for full practice while unrestricted competition remains pending. Contact clearance, game clearance, and return to performance remain separate. Agreement never overrides a contraindication, restriction, or individualized clinical judgment.

Clinician Workflow

Late-stage guidance for the gap between practice clearance and game clearance.

This workflow keeps contact clearance, game clearance, and return to performance separate while the athlete builds and demonstrates readiness.

01Confirm scope

Clearance, contact, restrictions

02Build reference

Healthy practice, game, week

03Log exposure

Dose, response, HR if reliable

04Describe gap

Athlete's own hockey demands

05Share decision

Progress, repeat, modify, assess

Monitoring Model

Accessible first. HR-informed when reliable.

Heart-rate data can add context, but it does not establish tissue readiness, maximal-speed exposure, contact dose, technical quality, psychological readiness, or game clearance.

Level 1

Accessible pathway

Use every session: ice duration, session RPE, exposure type, role, hockey demand, symptoms before/during/24 hours later, confidence, contact status, and shared decision.

Level 2

HR-informed pathway

Add average and peak HR, minutes above 85% of verified HRmax, platform TRIMP or zone-weighted TRIMP, TRIMP/min, capture quality, and same-method confirmation.

Clinical caution

Use numbers as context

Recent-to-prior calculations summarize training history. Do not use them as injury predictors, safe-zone rules, progression targets, or clearance thresholds.

Stop and assess

Response still governs

Stop and reassess for new swelling, instability, neurologic or cardiopulmonary symptoms, systemic illness, or a response that does not return to expected baseline.

Clinical use note:

These resources are general education for qualified clinicians. They are not a diagnosis-specific protocol and are not a substitute for individualized clinical judgment, medical clearance, team policy, or shared decision-making.