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Check Out Trent Nessler’s Story

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Trent Nessler.

Hi Trent, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am a physical therapist and had a practice in Phoenix, Arizona over 20 years ago. I was treating a lot of young athletes with ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries. I had twenty-two ACL reconstructed athletes (kids) come in a two-week period. At the conclusion of rehab, I was seeing movement patterns they presented with that I suspected would put them at risk for another injury, but yet, my traditional PT was not addressing. At that moment, I decided to go back to school and do a doctorate with a focus on biomechanics and motor learning to see if I could figure out how to assess. Twenty years later and through multiple iterations, I was able to partner with a tech company to develop a 3D motion capture system that was commercialized in 2017.

This system allows clinicians, athletic trainers, physicians, and strength coaches to assess athletes onsite and provide them with objective, lab-quality data. Since this time, this system has been used in over 450 facilities, organizations, and professional teams across the US and has been used to assess 29,000 athletes. It is also being used in multiple national research projects across the US and by some of the top-rated sports medicine facilities in the US. It is quickly becoming the tool by which clinicians and surgeons are using to determine a safe return to sport after an ACL reconstruction. In 2020, I joined Rebound, a company that works exclusively with first responders (police and fire) across the US.

We are now using this same system to assess firefighters and police officers for movements that place them at risk for musculoskeletal injuries. We then use their individual results to assign them to an innovative wellness program that will improve these movements and reduce the risk for injury in a high-risk occupation. This is by far the most rewarding step in my career. Protecting those who protect us.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This was not an easy process at all. It took me 20 years to bring a vision to reality. Despite the naysayers, the skeptics, and the competition. I am a physical therapist and innovator, not a negotiator. As a result, I have had multiple bad business deals, $100K of losses of savings, and bad partnerships that side railed the project time and time again. In 2014, I almost gave up completely. I was so tired, so frustrated, so drained. Maybe this was not meant to be. I almost left the PT field altogether. I felt like I was not getting anywhere with my vision, and maybe it was not as good as I thought.

Simply, the time was not right. Technology was not there. People could not see the vision. No one was seeing my vision and the technology was just not advanced enough to capture and automate what I was trying to accomplish. I always felt like God put me on this path. This is where He stepped in, crossed my path with the right people, at the right time with the right technology, and here we are today. Impacting the lives of 10s of thousands of athletes and first responders across the US.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a sports physical therapist. Been in practice since 1997. Worked with professional and collegiate sports down to high school athletes. I primarily treated ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries my whole career. Early on, was focused on trying to prevent these injuries from occurring or if they did occur, how could we prevent reinjury. I have published several peer-reviewed papers in this area, a college textbook, presented at many national and international conferences.

The development of a 3D motion capture system that is used in professional sports, collegiate sports, and clinics throughout the US has been a game-changer in the industry. As a part of this passion for prevention, I also developed a program called ACL Play It Safe with Theraband and Cramer which was used on over 10,000 athletes across the US. This program not only reduced ACL injuries by 80% but also reduced all lower extremity injuries by over 58.2%. This program and technology is taught and used around the US by PTs, ATCs, and MDs. Last year, I have expanded the use of this technology for use with first responders (fire/police) and we are finding very similar results as to what we saw in athletics.

I am most proud of the fact that something I created is being used around the US by some of the top-rated clinicians and physicians to help thousands of athletes play safely and perform better. The thing I am most known for is being the ACL guy. I don’t think I am different than anyone else but I am super passionate about the prevention of injuries and helping people use the latest in sports science and technology to help them perform better and last longer. I have a knack for seeing trends and leveraging/creating solutions to impact those trends in a meaningful way.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Bigger inclusion of technology. Still, so many of the things we do are subjective in nature. Technology will not only allow us to be more objective but also allow us to critically evaluate what we do as clinicians to see if we are truly having the impact we think we are having. It will also allow for the integration of AI to be able to reduce human error and make us even more effective than we currently are.

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