THE SPECIALIST BEHIND TRAINING DAY PT
Built by a physical therapist and life long athlete with a mission to redefine how physical therapy can change your life and mind.
MEET YOUR PHYSICAL THERAPIST
DR. RYAN HAZLEHURST
ELITE TRAINING
I began my career at one of southern Nevada's largest acute care hospitals, treated patients, ranging in age from 16 to 109, at their most medically fragile, often within days of major surgery, trauma, or a critical health event, helping them take their first steps toward recovery before discharge.
FROM ATHLETE TO RECOVERY
My path to physical therapy didn't start in a classroom. It started on the field.
I played sports year-round: football, skiing, snowboarding, baseball, roller hocky and track. I was team captain and student body president in high school, headed to the University of San Diego on a football scholarship.
During my senior year, I suffered a catastrophic knee injury on the field. Severe enough that orthopedic surgeons with decades of experience said they'd rarely seen anything like it.
FEELING LIMITED FROM LOSS
That knee injury required four surgeries at the time, and three more over my adult life, along with two additional surgeries on my other knee.
When the scholarship disappeared. So did the identity I'd built around being an athlete. I was told I might never run again, and for a while, I wasn't sure I'd walk without pain either.
The physical recovery was hard. The emotional recovery was harder when my fathers diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor coincided with my recovery. I went through a period of real depression, wondering if the life I'd planned for myself was simply gone.
What got me through those years, the surgeries, the fear, the grief, was physical therapy.
MENTAL & PHYSICAL IMPACT
PURPOSE IN THE STRUGGLE
I won't pretend every session was easy. Some of my clearest memories are of dreading appointments because of how much the hands-on work hurt in the moment.
I was about a year into my own recovery when I decided to stay home to help care for my father. Physical therapists often visited our house — strength training, doing mobility work, helping him relearn his own body, one session at a time.
Watching them, year after year, I saw the bigger picture. You have to treat the body and the mind together, or you're not treating the whole person at all.
That's when this stopped being just about my recovery. Those experiences are exactly what led me to this profession.
I know what it feels like to be on the table, scared and in pain, wondering if there's a version of your life on the other side of it.
There is, and I'm the perfect person to help you find it.
CREDENTIALS
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)
Touro University
CAPTE-accredited
Nevada - 2014
B.A. Psychology
Minor in Spanish
California State University, Chico
12+ years of clinical experience
Fluent in Spanish
How I Found My Purpose
Beyong the Clinic
Partners in Your Recovery
partnering with the best in womens pelvic health
The Training DayBlog
tip s & tools from your pt
“If you do it once, do it right, so you won’t have to do it again.”
A lesson my dad taught me I now teach my clients.