Upper St. Clair doctor develops workout bench with injury prevention in mind

While attending Upper St. Clair High School, Joel Klein was an exemplary athlete, earning a total of six varsity letters in baseball and basketball, and serving as team captain in both sports.

After he graduated, Klein continued to play baseball at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, when he could.

“I was injured for a majority of that first year,” he said. “I really started to look more into what was causing these injuries and trying to learn more about strength and conditioning, and physical therapy and sports medicine in general.

“And that’s when I started thinking about changing gears.”

He had been studying engineering but decided to transfer to the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in natural sciences and premedicine, and master’s in biomedical science. In May, he graduated from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, and now he is in residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Rochester (N.Y.) Regional Hospital.

What Klein learned in college and medical school, combined with his own extensive research, prompted him to develop a product with the intention of helping fitness-minded people work out in a more healthful manner.

He formed a company called 2XSTRENGTH — “Two Times,” if you’re saying it out loud — that produces a specialized training bench of his own design.

The primary focus of the MaxPerformance Accessory Cable Bench, introduced early this year, is on preventing neck and hamstring injuries, which in turn can contribute to steering clear of serious maladies such as concussions and anterior cruciate ligament tears.

“Anything you can do to help decrease that risk for head injury in contact-sports athletes is so beneficial because of the negative impacts of brain injuries they face from these sports,” Klein said.

His bench works in combination with a head harness cable attachment that allows for optimal movement of the neck while maintaining the spine in a neutral position. A chest harness assists in properly performing single-arm and -leg exercises, techniques that Klein has found to be effective in concentrating on specific areas of the body.

“It’s great for training muscular imbalances or asymmetries,” Klein said. “If I’m using this with my left arm, I know for sure that I’m working just my left arm.”

The year before he started medical school, Klein was employed part-time by UPMC Sports Medicine at the Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, working with patients varying from athletes to older individuals who’d had knee and hip replacements.

“Pretty much from Day One at LECOM, I had my sights set on sports medicine,” he said, with him making deciding to concentrate on physical medicine and rehabilitation rather than surgery “because I liked the nonoperative approach.

“From my experience, all the best surgeons will tell you: If you can avoid surgery, avoid surgery.”

Even better advice would be to avoid injury. And Klein, now as a doctor of osteopathy, considers the MaxPerformance bench to be a significant step in that direction.

For more information, visit 2xstrengthtraining.com.