Rehab home of the home team

SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

WALDWICK — The 6,000- square-foot room furnished with treatment tables, exercise bikes, elliptical machines and a treadmill has the jerseys of Patrick Ewing, Jason Kidd, Martin Brodeur and Gary Sheffield hanging on the walls.

These major sports stars have come through the doors needing help, and returned to their respective teams ready to resume their careers.

On this afternoon, mostly average Joes and Janes occupy the treatment tables at Excel Orthopedic Rehabilitation, which is the norm. The biggest name belongs to Brooke Ammerman, a River Vale native and Pascack Valley graduate who will try out for the 2010 U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team in August.

Ammerman has a nagging hip flexor injury. She’s come in for a massage, some stretching and other exercises to relieve some of the muscles that are in spasm. Excel helped Ammerman after she underwent wrist surgery last year. As a freshman, she helped lead the University of Wisconsin to the women’s national championship.

Now she calls Excel whenever something hurts.“Going to the best, it’s kind of hard to trust anybody else,” Ammerman said. “So if I have any questions I usually e-mail them, call them, text them just to find out what their opinion is before I decide to do anything pretty drastic.’’Physical therapists Matt Gibble of Ridgewood and Gary Flink, a Hillsdale native and Franklin Lakes resident, are the co-owners and directors of Excel, and building trust is paramount. Excel is the team provider for Fairleigh Dickinson University, and works extensively with the Nets.

Ex-Nets guard Kenny Anderson was Excel’s first pro patient in 1995. They have since helped former Nets Stephon Marbury, Dikembe Mutombo, Richard Jefferson and Nenad Krstic return after surgeries.

Professional teams outsource their physical therapy needs because travel makes it difficult for their training staff to work daily on players who will be sidelined a long time. Gibble and Flink, both Ironman triathletes, opened the practice in Fort Lee in 1990, and have added locations in Oakland, Hackensack and Waldwick. The Waldwick facility is inside the Superdome Sports Complex and has privileges to use it for patients to exercise in later rehab.

A doctor usually calls Excel after someone has major surgery to repair a torn shoulder, ACL, MCL or wrist, and asks to help the person return to a normal life, whether it’s an athlete, plumber, welder, soccer mom or weekend golfer. It’s how Ewing, Kidd and Brodeur found Excel. “Every person who comes in is in a sling or a cast or immobilized,” Gibble said. “We work on restoring the range of motion first, and then we gradually introduce exercises to restore and regain their strength.”

Dr. Charles Melone, who performed Ewing’s wrist surgery in 1997, and assisted in repairing Brodeur’s torn left biceps tendon in the 2008-09 season, recommended Excel.

Dr. David Altchek performed Kidd’s microfracture knee surgery in 2004, and sent the former Nets point guard to Excel. Kidd worked with Gibble, sometimes twice a day, and was the first NBA player to successfully return from microfracture surgery.

“Matt and his team were a big part of my comeback,” Kidd said. Excel’s main competitors are Kessler, Sports Care Institute and some privately owned physical therapy offices. The company says a big part of its success comes from the attention the 15 physical therapists give their patients. They don’t want to let down the patient, doctor or team.

“We built our practice and our name in the community with the physicians and patients and their families by providing a very personalized level of care,” Flink said. Brodeur needed eight wins to break Patrick Roy’s NHL record of 551. He worked exclusively with Flink, two hours a day up to five days a week. He returned to the ice in February and set the mark after nine starts. Flink and Gibble were at the Prudential Center to celebrate the record with him.

“The beauty of this is how they know their stuff,” Brodeur said. “You go to rehab and they would say, ‘All right Marty, this is what’s going to happen,’and it would happen.” Current and ex-Devils Bobby Holik, Sergei Brylin and Jay Pandolfo, ex-Red Bulls Mike McGee and Pete Canero and San Diego Chargers lineman and Garfield native Luis Castillo also have been patients.

Nets backup guard Keyon Dooling is rehabbing from hip surgery with Excel now. “They do a great job,” Nets trainer Tim Walsh said. “They take care of the majority of any extended rehab, especially in-season. There’s no way I would be able to get through without them.” Their patients say the same thing.

Staff writer Tom