Patient Story · Combat Sports · Fight Night September 12

Unretired: How Victor Hernandez Fought His Way Back From Myofascial Pain

He was 15-0 with thirteen knockouts and ranked in the world’s top fifteen. Then came pain that no scan could explain, a title fight that came off the calendar, and in November 2025, retirement. Ten months later he walks to the ring in Midland, Texas — against the same man he never got to fight. This is what we did in between, and what the evidence behind it does and does not say.

Disclosure: Victor Hernandez is a patient of The Fascia Institute and Treatment Center, and The Fascia Institute is a sponsor of his professional boxing career. His name, story, and treatment details appear here with his written authorization. This is one patient’s experience, not a study — individual results vary, and nothing below is a guarantee of any outcome.
The Fight He Didn’t Have

The fight that never happened

On October 11, 2025, Victor “Jalapeño” Hernandez was supposed to fight Conrado Martinez for the NABF featherweight title at Bouts at the Ballpark, in a ring built on the infield of a minor-league stadium in El Paso. He was 15-0 with thirteen knockouts, ranked twelfth in the world at 126 pounds, and two months removed from stopping Jayvon Garnett in ten rounds in Tennessee.30,31 The bout came off the card.

The following month he retired. Thirty-two years old, undefeated, ranked — and hurting in a way nobody had been able to put a name to. Out of respect for his privacy we are not going to publish which part of his body it was, or the workup he had already been through before he got to us. Those details are his to share, not ours. What we can describe is the shape of the problem, because the shape is the same every time.

A fighter with a structural injury has a clear path: there is a picture of the problem, there is a procedure, there is a rehab timeline. A fighter whose pain has no picture has none of that. He has an MRI that reads “unremarkable,” a physical therapist who has run out of ideas, and a growing suspicion that people think he is soft. Myofascial pain does not end careers because it is severe. It ends careers because it is unexplained, and unexplained pain is impossible to plan around. So you stop planning.

What follows is what we found when we examined him with an ultrasound probe instead of reading an MRI report, what we did about it across ten months, and an honest accounting of how strong the evidence is behind each piece. On September 12 he fights Conrad Martinez for the WBC USA featherweight title at The Final Event Center in Midland, Texas, live on pay-per-view. Martinez is the man he was supposed to fight the night his body stopped cooperating.

15–0
professional record, thirteen by knockout, at the moment the pain took over31
45.7%
of boxing injuries in a 21st-century meta-analysis are soft tissue — contusion, sprain, muscle and ligament — versus 11.4% fracture1
0
surgeries, incisions, or nights in a hospital in the whole comeback

Boxing is a soft-tissue sport that gets treated like a head-injury sport

Almost all the medical attention boxing receives, deservedly, goes to the brain. But that is not where the injuries mostly are. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of boxing epidemiology studies published this century, the pooled pathology breakdown was 30.2% soft-tissue contusion, 21.4% skin laceration, 15.3% sprain and muscle or ligament injury, 12.3% concussion, and 11.4% fracture.1 Soft tissue is the single largest category, and it is the category with the least infrastructure around it.

The load is relentless and one-sided. Elite boxers spend roughly a thousand times more hours training than competing, and thirteen times more hours punching in the gym than in the ring — yet in the Great Britain Olympic squad tracked prospectively from 2005 to 2012, the number of hand and wrist injuries sustained in training and in competition was about the same.3 That is a statement about cumulative exposure, not about single traumatic events. Across US emergency-department data, hand, wrist and shoulder injuries occur at the highest rate of any boxing-related upper-extremity injury.2 Reviews of Olympic combat sport put the wrist and the lower back in the top three injured regions after the head and face, and boxers show measurable upper-limb functional differences compared with non-boxing controls.4

Now consider what that decade of rotational, asymmetric, high-repetition load does to fascia — the connective tissue sheets and sleeves that muscles and nerves are supposed to glide inside. Fascia is densely supplied with free nerve endings, which makes it a pain generator in its own right and not merely a passive wrapper.7 It can actively stiffen through smooth-muscle-like cells.6 And in chronic pain it changes in ways that ultrasound can see: connective tissue that is measurably thicker, more echogenic, and worse at sliding than in pain-free controls.5

None of that appears on a standard MRI report. An MRI is a still photograph taken while you lie motionless in a tube; it is excellent at anatomy and nearly blind to behavior — whether layers slide, whether a nerve is tethered, whether a structure hurts when you press it. That is why an athlete can be in career-ending pain and hold a stack of normal imaging. It is also why the first thing we did with Victor was not a treatment.

The Comeback Protocol

Find it. Change the tissue. Turn down the pain. Reload.

Nine things were used on Victor. They were not nine attempts at the same job — they sit in four stages, and the order matters more than the list. You cannot release tissue you have not located, and you cannot expect a release to hold if the athlete never loads it afterward.

STAGE 1 · Find it
Fascial Mapping®
A 488-point diagnostic ultrasound examination of the whole body, performed by a physician, scoring tissue quality and glide point by point and comparing side to side. We scan while the athlete contracts, relaxes, and rotates, and we press on tissue while he is awake and tells us whether that is his pain. In Victor’s case this is the step that produced the first actual explanation he had been given. Everything downstream followed the map rather than a protocol. See Fascial Mapping and why an athlete gets one.
STAGE 2 · Change the tissue
Hydrofascia Release™
Ultrasound-guided fascial hydrodissection: a thin needle placed at the exact interface identified on the map, and fluid used to mechanically separate tissue planes that have scarred together, or to free a nerve tethered to the fascia it should glide through. This is the technique Dr. Courseault first published for chronic hamstring injury,8 and which he has also published for a fascial adhesion strangling the ulnar nerve of a Division I pitcher — released under ultrasound, pitching a full game four days later, symptom-free at seven months.9 Independent groups have since replicated the hamstring application, reporting pain scores falling from 10 to under 1 with no recurrence at roughly six months.10 For nerves specifically, the technique has a randomized controlled trial behind it: perineural 5% dextrose beat control for carpal tunnel syndrome out to six months.11,12 See Hydrofascia Release™.
STAGE 2 · Change the tissue
Dextrose prolotherapy
Where release is the wrong answer — a ligament or tendon that has gone lax rather than stuck — the goal inverts. Prolotherapy uses a dextrose solution to provoke a repair response and tighten tissue rather than free it. The most relevant evidence for a fighter comes from kicking-sport athletes: a series of elite male athletes with chronic groin pain treated with dextrose prolotherapy, most returning to unrestricted sport.16 The overall systematic-review evidence for chronic musculoskeletal pain is favorable but heterogeneous,13 and the proposed mechanism is multifactorial rather than the simple “irritant” story it is often sold as15 — in cell culture, high glucose increases fibroblast proliferation, TGF-β signaling and type-I collagen synthesis without significantly increasing cell death, which is the “feed” half of Dr. Courseault’s weed-and-feed analogy — though that work was done in renal fibroblasts, not tendon, so treat it as a plausible mechanism rather than a proven one.14 See dextrose & fascial prolotherapy and ProloBoost Dual PRP.
STAGE 3 · Turn it down
Shockwave therapy
The strongest evidence of anything in stage three. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials — 27 studies, 595 patients in the shockwave arm — found extracorporeal shockwave therapy effective for relieving pain and improving function in myofascial pain syndrome, versus both control and therapeutic ultrasound.17 A separate meta-analysis of controlled studies reached the same direction of effect.18 The honest caveat, from a 2025 scoping review, is that protocols across the literature are wildly inconsistent in energy, impulse count, and even in how myofascial pain is diagnosed — so “shockwave works” is better supported than any specific dose.19 See shockwave therapy.
STAGE 3 · Turn it down
HUMAN TECAR
Capacitive and resistive energy transfer — a radiofrequency current that raises tissue temperature at depth and, in the trial data, raises pressure-pain thresholds. Adding TECAR to stretching and medication for upper-trapezius myofascial pain produced significantly lower pain scores than the conventional treatment alone in a randomized clinical trial.21 Directly relevant to a fighter: three sessions of TECAR plus static stretching improved hamstring length more than ultrasound plus the same stretching in male athletes.22 The systematic review is positive across musculoskeletal disorders while noting that only two of thirteen included studies carried a low risk of bias.20 See HUMAN TECAR therapy.
STAGE 3 · Turn it down
Red light (photobiomodulation)
Red and near-infrared light applied to muscle, hypothesized to work through mitochondrial and inflammatory pathways. A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials in athletes found that light therapy delivered before exercise significantly improved lower-limb muscle strength at 24, 48 and 96 hours and at eight weeks, with lower soreness and lower creatine kinase, interleukin-6, and lipid-peroxidation markers.23 The timing detail matters and is often gotten wrong — most of the benefit in the literature comes from pre-loading, not from lying under a panel afterward. The counterweight: a 2024 review across twelve systematic reviews concluded the outcomes are beneficial but the primary evidence is low quality, and that no peer-reviewed guideline for laser use in athletic performance exists.24
STAGE 3 · Turn it down
PEMF
Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, FDA-cleared for bone non-union since 1979 and used here for pain and recovery between hard sessions. Be careful with the claims: in a meta-analysis of eight randomized trials in knee osteoarthritis, PEMF improved physical function but showed no advantage over control for pain or stiffness.25 A 2026 systematic review of randomized trials in soft-tissue injury specifically found only four eligible trials — acute ankle sprain, Achilles tendinopathy, plantar fasciitis with calcaneal spurs — which is a thin base to generalize from.26 It is well tolerated and it is not a substitute for the work in stage two. See PEMF therapy.
STAGE 3 · Turn it down
Microcurrent
Sub-sensory electrical current, used for soreness between camps. The evidence here is genuinely split and we are not going to pretend otherwise. A systematic review of four randomized and five non-randomized trials found microcurrent significantly improved shoulder and knee pain versus sham, with one minor adverse event across 281 participants — an excellent safety profile.27 A frequency-specific protocol markedly reduced delayed-onset soreness versus sham at 24, 48 and 72 hours.28 But an earlier double-blind comparison of conventional microcurrent found no benefit over sham for soreness or range of motion.29 Read together: the parameters appear to matter more than the modality, and this belongs in the “cheap, safe, possibly helpful” tier — not the tier that changes a career.
STAGE 4 · Reload
AlterG
A lower-body positive-pressure treadmill: an air chamber seals at the waist and lifts, letting an athlete run at a precise fraction of body weight — down to 20% remaining — so roadwork can restart before the tissue tolerates full impact. Compared with pool running or harness systems it gives a more natural gait and far better control over progressive reloading, and it has been used in return-to-run programs after bone stress injury, Achilles rupture, and major knee surgery.32 Reduced weight-bearing changes stride mechanics measurably, mostly by lengthening flight time,33 which is exactly why it is a bridge and not a destination. It also does not build aerobic capacity better than normal training does.34 For a boxer the point is simple: keep the engine while the tissue heals.
STAGE 4 · Reload
OxeFit
The stage that decides whether any of the rest holds. A robotic resistance platform that measures force on both sides independently, so left-right asymmetry becomes a number instead of a hunch, and that can load the eccentric phase heavier than the concentric. Progressive resistance training is one of the best-evidenced interventions in all of rehabilitation,35 and eccentric-emphasis work drives distinct adaptations in strength and tissue tolerance.36 Real-time force feedback measurably increases output within a session.37 Two honest caveats we keep in front of athletes: there is no validated asymmetry threshold that tells you when you are safe,38 and passing a return-to-sport test battery has not been shown to prevent reinjury.39 Numbers inform the decision; they do not make it. See the strength and loading side of our care.

What the Evidence Actually Supports

Nine treatments were used and their evidence bases are not equal. Pretending otherwise would be the easiest thing on this page to do and the worst.

Strongest: shockwave for myofascial pain (meta-analysis of randomized trials),17,18 perineural dextrose hydrodissection (randomized controlled trial with six-month follow-up),12 and progressive resistance and eccentric loading (decades of trials across rehabilitation).35,36

Promising but thinner: fascial hydrodissection for muscle and tendon, which rests on Dr. Courseault’s original published work plus independent replication in small series rather than on a randomized trial;8,9,10 TECAR;20,21,22 and photobiomodulation, where the direction of effect is consistent but the primary studies are small and of low quality.23,24

Weakest: PEMF, where the best musculoskeletal meta-analysis found benefit for function but not for pain,25 and microcurrent, where trials directly contradict each other depending on the parameters used.27,28,29 These are safe, tolerable adjuncts. They are not the reason anyone gets back in a ring.

No evidence for the devices themselves: there are no published clinical trials on the OxeFit or, as a device, on the specific machines we use. The evidence supports the training principles they deliver — measured progressive load, eccentric emphasis, unloaded gait — not the hardware brand.

And the honest limit of this whole story: this is one athlete who received nine things over ten months. There is no way to know which single component did the most work, and no way to rule out the training he did, the time that passed, or his own belief that he was fixable. One person getting better is not evidence that a protocol works. It is a reason to look carefully at the next person who walks in with unexplained pain and a stack of normal scans.

One team, two coasts

Fighters do not live where their doctors live. Camps move, cards move, and a protocol that only exists in one zip code is a protocol most professional athletes cannot actually follow. Victor’s care ran through The Fascia Institute network rather than a single office: the diagnostic and procedural work at our New Orleans flagship, where fascial hydrodissection was developed and where the technique is explained in detail, and the loading work through FIT Therapeutics, the network’s therapy arm, which houses the AlterG and OxeFit.

The same capability now exists in Beverly Hills. The Fascia Institute and Treatment Center of LA runs the identical diagnostic examination and the identical procedures, which means an athlete training on the West Coast for a fight on the East Coast is not choosing between his camp and his care. We have run this coast-to-coast pattern before — catcher Kendall Hagedorn received fascia care at both facilities before signing with the Milwaukee Brewers, and our baseball soft-tissue page covers the same technique applied to obliques, hamstrings and throwing arms.

If you are a fighter, a coach, or a manager reading this in Los Angeles: the relevant pages are Fascial Mapping to find the problem, Hydrofascia Release™ and prolotherapy to treat it, and Fascia Medicine for the framework the whole thing sits inside. Published pricing is on the site. Bouts get made on short notice; call us early.

Is This You?

Three versions of the same problem

The fighter who was told to retire
Combat sports, but also anyone in a rotational, one-sided, high-repetition sport. Pain that has outlasted every reasonable rehab attempt, imaging that keeps coming back clean, and a professional consensus forming around the idea that you are done. Before you accept that, get the tissue examined dynamically rather than photographed.
The athlete whose scans are normal
You hurt in a specific, reproducible place, and the MRI says nothing is there. That combination is not a psychological finding — it is a resolution problem. Fascial adhesion, restricted glide and nerve tethering are dynamic properties, and dynamic properties need a dynamic test. Start with why a fascial map.
The one who keeps re-tearing
Same muscle, third time. Recurrent strain in an athlete who heals slowly, bruises easily, or has loose joints elsewhere is a very common presentation of hypermobility, and it changes the whole treatment plan. We run a dedicated hypermobility and EDS protocol in Beverly Hills.

September 12

On Saturday, September 12, 2026, Victor Hernandez fights Conrad Martinez (12-3) for the WBC USA featherweight title at The Final Event Center in Midland, Texas, live on pay-per-view. Ten months ago he was retired.

We want to be careful about what that sentence means. We did not clear him to fight — medical clearance for a professional bout belongs to the athletic commission, not to us. We did not make him a better boxer. What we did was find a physical explanation for pain that had been treated as unexplainable, change the tissue that was generating it, and then reload him carefully enough that he trusted his own body under load again. He did the rest, and the rest was the hard part.

There is a symmetry to the matchup that is difficult to miss. Martinez is the man who was scheduled across the ring from him on the card that came off the calendar in October 2025, weeks before he walked away from the sport. Whatever the scorecards say in Midland, he gets to have the fight.

The reason this story is on our website is not that it is unusual for us to treat a fighter. It is that the version of this story we see most often ends with the athlete quietly stopping. Somebody in the same position is reading this. That is who it is for.

Beverly Hills · New Orleans

Bring us the pain nobody can explain

A physician-performed Fascial Map is where every one of these stories starts. If there is something to find, we will find it and tell you what we would do about it. If there isn’t, we will tell you that too.

Or call (424) 378-3488 · 415 North Crescent Drive, Suite 130, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Frequently asked questions

What is myofascial pain, and why is it so hard to diagnose?

It is pain generated by muscle and by the fascia surrounding it rather than by bone, disc, or cartilage. It is hard to diagnose because standard imaging is built to show structure, and the problems here are functional: whether tissue layers slide, whether a nerve is tethered, whether a specific spot reproduces your pain under pressure. Fascia is richly innervated with free nerve endings,7 can actively stiffen,6 and changes measurably in chronic pain in ways ultrasound can detect and MRI reports typically do not mention.5

Did all nine treatments happen at once?

No, and that is the important part. They run in four stages — diagnose, change the tissue, modulate pain and recovery, then reload — and the sequence is what makes it work. Loading tissue that is still adhered tends to reproduce the injury; releasing tissue and then never loading it tends to let the problem come back. Nobody receives all nine as a package. What you get follows what your Fascial Map shows.

Which treatment actually made the difference?

We cannot know, and we would be inventing an answer if we told you. In a single athlete receiving a staged combination there is no way to isolate one component, and no way to exclude the effect of training and elapsed time. What we can say is which parts of the protocol have controlled trials behind them — shockwave for myofascial pain,17,18 perineural dextrose hydrodissection,12 progressive resistance and eccentric loading35,36 — and which are adjuncts with weaker or conflicting evidence. That breakdown is in the gold box above.

Is any of this banned in professional boxing?

The modalities described here — ultrasound-guided hydrodissection with dextrose, shockwave, TECAR, PEMF, red light, microcurrent, and resistance and unloaded-gait training — are physical therapies and non-prohibited injectables, not performance-enhancing drugs. That said, anti-doping lists change and every commission and sanctioning body differs, so any competing athlete should clear their specific treatment plan with their commission and their team rather than relying on a web page. We are glad to document what was administered.

I’m not a professional athlete. Does this apply to me?

The diagnostic problem is identical, and far more common outside sport. Unexplained pain with normal imaging is one of the most frequent reasons people come to us — the presentation just gets labeled differently depending on who you are. A retired fighter gets “wear and tear”; a desk worker gets “stress.” Both may have an adhered fascial plane that a dynamic ultrasound exam can find. Start with why get a fascial map or what fascia actually is.

Do you treat fighters in Los Angeles, or only in New Orleans?

Both. Our Beverly Hills clinic performs the same Fascial Mapping examination and the same procedures as the New Orleans flagship, and combat-sport athletes training in Southern California can be managed entirely on the West Coast. Call (424) 378-3488 or use the contact page. Fights get made on short notice, so reach out before camp rather than during it.

Can you promise me a comeback?

No. One athlete’s outcome is not a prediction of yours, and some pain has a cause we cannot treat — which is a conversation we would rather have after an honest examination than avoid. What we can promise is that you will leave the first visit knowing what we found, what we did not find, and whether we think we can help.

References & further reading

  1. Mao Y, Zhao D, Li J, Fu W. Incidence rates and pathology types of boxing-specific injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiology studies in the 21st century. Orthop J Sports Med. 2023;11(3). PMID 37025124
  2. Lemme NJ, Ready L, Faria M, DeFroda SF, Gil JA, Owens BD. Epidemiology of boxing-related upper extremity injuries in the United States. Phys Sportsmed. 2018;46(4):503–508. PMID 30156137
  3. Loosemore M, Lightfoot J, Gatt I, Hayton M, Beardsley C. Hand and wrist injuries in elite boxing: a longitudinal prospective study (2005–2012) of the Great Britain Olympic boxing squad. Hand (N Y). 2017;12(2):181–187. PMID 28344531
  4. Functional performance of the upper limb and the most common boxing-related injuries in male boxers: a retrospective, observational, comparative study with a non-boxing population. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2022. PMID 36050792. See also: A systematic review of prospective epidemiological research into injury and illness in Olympic combat sport. PMID 28954799
  5. Langevin HM, Stevens-Tuttle D, Fox JR, et al. Ultrasound evidence of altered lumbar connective tissue structure in human subjects with chronic low back pain. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2009;10:151. PMID 19958536
  6. Schleip R, Gabbiani G, Wilke J, et al. Fascia is able to actively contract and may thereby influence musculoskeletal dynamics: a histochemical and mechanographic investigation. Front Physiol. 2019;10:336. PMID 31001134
  7. Suarez-Rodriguez V, Fede C, Pirri C, et al. Fascial innervation: a systematic review of the literature. Int J Mol Sci. 2022;23(10):5674. PMID 35628484
  8. Courseault J, Kessler E, Moran A, Labbe A. Fascial hydrodissection for chronic hamstring injury. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2019;18(11):416–420. PMID 31702723
  9. Gerard NO 3rd, Mortell TM, Kingry C, Couture C, Courseault J. Hydrodissection of an ulnar nerve fascial adhesion in a baseball pitcher. JSES Rev Rep Tech. 2023;3(2):252–255. PMID 37588433
  10. Shiwaku K, Otsubo H, Suzuki D, et al. Ultrasound-guided fascial hydrorelease for persistent pain after hamstring injury. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. 2025;10(3):318. PMC12371940 (independent case series, n=7)
  11. Lam KHS, Hung CY, Chiang YP, et al. Ultrasound-guided nerve hydrodissection for pain management: rationale, methods, current literature, and theoretical mechanisms. J Pain Res. 2020;13:1957–1968. PMID 32801851
  12. Wu YT, Chen SR, Li TY, et al. Nerve hydrodissection for carpal tunnel syndrome: a prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92(8):1179–1189. PMID 28778254
  13. Hauser RA, Lackner JB, Steilen-Matias D, Harris DK. A systematic review of dextrose prolotherapy for chronic musculoskeletal pain. Clin Med Insights Arthritis Musculoskelet Disord. 2016;9:139–159. PMID 27429562
  14. Han DC, Isono M, Hoffman BB, Ziyadeh FN. High glucose stimulates proliferation and collagen type I synthesis in renal cortical fibroblasts: mediation by autocrine activation of TGF-beta. J Am Soc Nephrol. 1999;10(9):1891–1899. PMID 10477140 (in-vitro, renal cortical fibroblasts — not a musculoskeletal model)
  15. Reeves KD, Sit RWS, Rabago DP. Dextrose prolotherapy: a narrative review of basic science, clinical research, and best treatment recommendations. Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am. 2016;27(4):783–823. PMID 27788902
  16. Topol GA, Reeves KD, Hassanein KM. Efficacy of dextrose prolotherapy in elite male kicking-sport athletes with chronic groin pain. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2005;86(4):697–702. PMID 15827920 (case series, no control group)
  17. Avendaño-López C, Megía-García Á, Beltran-Alacreu H, et al. Efficacy of extracorporeal shockwave therapy on pain and function in myofascial pain syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2024;103(2):89–98. PMID 37205742
  18. Efficacy of extracorporeal shock waves in the treatment of myofascial pain syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical studies. Ann Transl Med. 2022. PMID 35280414
  19. The state of extracorporeal shockwave therapy for myofascial pain syndrome — a scoping review and a call for standardized protocols. Life (Basel). 2025;15(10):1501. PMID 41157174 (protocols across the literature are inconsistent)
  20. Beltrame R, Ronconi G, Ferrara PE, Salgovic L, Vercelli S, Solaro C, Ferriero G. Capacitive and resistive electric transfer therapy in rehabilitation: a systematic review. Int J Rehabil Res. 2020;43(4):291–298. PMID 32909988 (only 2 of 13 included studies at low risk of bias)
  21. Taheri P, Sadri S, Maghroori R. Effect of adding transfer energy capacitive and resistive therapy to conventional therapy for patients with myofascial pain syndrome in upper trapezius: a randomized clinical trial. J Chiropr Med. 2023;22(4):257–264. PMC10774611
  22. Comparison between the effects of transfer energy capacitive and resistive therapy and therapeutic ultrasound on hamstring muscle shortness in male athletes: a single-blind randomized controlled trial. PMC11234255
  23. Luo WT, Lee CJ, Tam KW, Huang TW. Effects of low-level laser therapy on muscular performance and soreness recovery in athletes: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Sports Health. 2022;14(5):687–693. PMID 34428975
  24. Lawrence J, Sorra K. Photobiomodulation as medicine: low-level laser therapy (LLLT) for acute tissue injury or sport performance recovery. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. 2024;9(4):181. PMID 39449475 (beneficial across 12 systematic reviews, but primary evidence quality is low)
  25. Chen L, Duan X, Xing F, Liu G, Gong M, Li L, Chen R, Xiang Z. Effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy on pain, stiffness and physical function in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Rehabil Med. 2019;51(11):821–827. PMID 31583420 (function improved; no advantage for pain or stiffness)
  26. Chia CSM, Fu SC, Ko VMC, Lai JWH, Zhou M, Yung PSH, et al. The effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy on pain and physical functions in patients with soft tissue injuries: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Front Sports Act Living. 2026;8:1694944. PMC12916110 (only 4 eligible trials)
  27. Iijima H, Takahashi M. Microcurrent therapy as a therapeutic modality for musculoskeletal pain: a systematic review accelerating the translation from clinical trials to patient care. Arch Rehabil Res Clin Transl. 2021;3(3):100145. PMID 34589695
  28. Curtis D, Fallows S, Morris M, McMakin C. The efficacy of frequency specific microcurrent therapy on delayed onset muscle soreness. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2010;14(3):272–279. PMID 20538225
  29. Allen JD, Mattacola CG, Perrin DH. Effect of microcurrent stimulation on delayed-onset muscle soreness: a double-blind comparison. J Athl Train. 1999;34(4):334–337. PMC1323340 (no benefit versus sham — the counterweight to ref 28)
  30. Bouts at the Ballpark: Victor Hernandez vs. Conrad Martinez in NABF featherweight championship. El Paso Sports Network, October 10, 2025. epsportsnetwork.com (the October 11, 2025 NABF title bout that came off the card)
  31. Victor “Jalapeño” Hernandez professional record and rankings. BoxRec boxrec.com and Tapology tapology.com
  32. Vincent HK, Madsen A, Vincent KR. Role of antigravity training in rehabilitation and return to sport after running injuries. Arthrosc Sports Med Rehabil. 2022;4(1):e141–e149. PMC8811491
  33. Fohrmann D, et al. Biomechanical changes during running on a lower body positive pressure treadmill in competitive runners. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2025. PMID 40350713
  34. Training on a lower body positive pressure treadmill with body weight support does not improve aerobic capacity. Int J Exerc Sci. 2021;14(7). PMC8439686 (negative finding)
  35. Taylor NF, Dodd KJ, Damiano DL. Progressive resistance exercise in physical therapy: a summary of systematic reviews. Phys Ther. 2005;85(11):1208–1223. PMID 16253049
  36. Douglas J, Pearson S, Ross A, McGuigan M. Chronic adaptations to eccentric training: a systematic review. Sports Med. 2017;47(5):917–941. PMID 27647157
  37. Weakley J, Wilson K, Till K, et al. Show me, tell me, encourage me: the effect of different forms of feedback on resistance training performance. J Strength Cond Res. 2020;34(11):3157–3163. PMID 33105366 (n=12, acute within-session effect only)
  38. Bishop C, Turner A, Read P. Effects of inter-limb asymmetries on physical and sports performance: a systematic review. J Sports Sci. 2018;36(10):1135–1144. PMID 28767317 (no validated asymmetry cutoff)
  39. Losciale JM, Zdeb RM, Ledbetter L, Reiman MP, Sell TC. The association between passing return-to-sport criteria and second anterior cruciate ligament injury risk: a systematic review with meta-analysis. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2019;49(2):43–54. PMID 30501385

Across The Fascia Institute Network

Fascial hydrodissection was developed and refined at our New Orleans flagship, The Fascia Institute and Treatment Center — see their explainer on what a fascial hydrodissection is and their soft-tissue injury treatment page. The loading and rehabilitation work runs through FIT Therapeutics. Learn more about our founder, Dr. Jacques Courseault, MD, or read his Los Angeles page. Other athletes on this site: hamstring hydrodissection, baseball soft-tissue injuries, and a case report in a hypermobile skateboarder.

Recurrent strains, slow healing, and pain “everywhere” in an athlete are a very common presentation of hypermobility, which changes the treatment plan substantially. Our dedicated Hypermobility & Ehlers-Danlos Clinic and its EDS blog go deeper, and in Los Angeles we run a dedicated hypermobility and EDS protocol. Curious about the tissue itself? Start with what is fascia or 250 years of fascia.

Disclosure: Victor Hernandez is a patient of The Fascia Institute and Treatment Center, and The Fascia Institute is a sponsor of his professional boxing career. His name, story, and treatment details appear here with his written authorization. Individual results vary and one patient’s outcome does not predict yours; nothing here is a guarantee of any result. This page is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and it does not create a physician–patient relationship. The Fascia Institute did not provide medical clearance for competition; clearance for a professional bout is determined by the relevant athletic commission. Ultrasound-guided fascial hydrodissection, prolotherapy, and the adjunctive therapies described are not appropriate for every cause of pain. The Fascia Institute and Treatment Center® of LA · 415 North Crescent Drive, Suite 130, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 · (424) 378-3488 · fit@fasciala.com.