IMS Welcomes Julie Eibensteiner as a Contributor

IMS has been looking for a sports injury and preventions sponsor for some time. As is the case with all my sponsors, I seek out those that are soccer people and I can form relationships with. I’m very happy to announce that Laurus Rehab will partner with IMS by contributing stories on sport injury and prevention. Laurus specializes in ACL rehab and prevention in competitive athletes.

Julie Eibensteiner

Laurus, which is Latin for laurel and signifies victory, triumph and success, is a unique rehab facility in that it’s owned by Julie Eibensteiner. She’s a former soccer player and current soccer coach besides her duties at Laurus.

Julie played five seasons at the U of M as a Golden Gopher where she was a goalkeeper. Her team won the Big Ten Championship in 1997 and earned three berths in the NCAA Championships during her time there. Upon graduation, Eibensteiner served as an assistant coach at Iowa State University for two seasons before returning to Minnesota to pursue her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the University of Minnesota. She is now a PT, DPT and CSCS. She holds a USSF A License, coaches a U18G MRL team for Eden Prairie Soccer Club, and assists with the Men’s and Women’s soccer programs at Macalester College.

“If the next best thing to playing soccer is coaching soccer then physical therapy is a natural extension of that,” said Eibensteiner. “I always enjoyed knowing how the body works and how we can improve upon how it functions. Medical school was a consideration, but physical therapy is a better fit because you get more hands-on time with your patients. Coaching and physical therapy parallel one another in so many ways: observation, evaluation, formulating goals and a plan, and then guiding them successfully through the plan towards those goals.”

“I love working with athletes and I feel like I have a good understanding of what makes competitive athletes tick from my experience as both a coach and player. The ACL injury is such a devastating injury for a competitive athlete and the traditional outpatient physical therapy model isn’t really ideal for athletes with this injury – space and time is limited in a traditional practice and insurance companies are often more concerned that you can function like an average member of society, not moving like a high level athlete. After working and being frustrated in that model, I decided to form my own practice where I have the time, space, and  resources to be highly personalized and get athletes back to their previous level of play on the field, moving like their sport demands and not just settling for full range of motion and the ability to jog and hop again.”