Thomas Best, M.D., Ph.D., Earns ACSM Honor Award for Transforming Sports Injury Recovery

By: Chad Hanson | June 11, 2026 | 8 min. read |

From an influential study that reshaped hamstring injury treatment to decades of mentorship and innovation, Dr. Thomas Best’s career continues to influence sports medicine worldwide.

Dr. Thomas Best wearing glasses and a white UHealth lab coat with University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and sports medicine logos, posed against a plain gray background.

When Thomas Best, M.D., Ph.D., reflects on receiving the American College of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) highest honor, he does not point to a single achievement. Instead, he views the recognition as the culmination of a career spent advancing patient and athlete care, mentoring future leaders, and asking questions that change how medicine is practiced.

“The Honor Award is the highest award the college gives,” he said. “For me, the recognition from my colleagues was humbling. It’s hard for me to imagine being named in the same breath as some of our field’s legends.”

For Dr. Best, professor and vice chair of research for the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, those roles have never been siloed. They coalesce into the philosophy of beneficence that has defined a career that spans more than 40 years.

“I’ve always believed that when you give unconditionally, you will get more in return,” he said. “I really joined the ACSM initially to pay back to my profession.”

A Career Guided by Curiosity and Purpose

Dr. Best’s interest in sports medicine began long before his academic career, rooted in his own experience as an accomplished sprinter.

“As a former athlete, that’s really where it started for me,” he said.

Medical tent staff at the IRONMAN competition — Dr. Thomas Best (front row, third from left) *served as the charge doctor for the IRONMAN® World Championship*.

Even at a young age, his curiosity extended beyond performance. Ironically, that curiosity stemmed from his athletic limitations.

“The science part of me asked questions about how muscle fiber types can change with exercise,” he said. “I was mostly fast-twitch fibers, so I knew I had the potential to run fast. But if I had to go far, I wasn’t very good. That insight as an athlete — don’t try to run a marathon — led me to medicine.”

Redefining Recovery Through Research

That insight eventually led to a landmark study that reshaped how clinicians treat hamstring injuries. Authored by Dr. Best and published in 2004, the randomized clinical trial challenged long-standing assumptions about rehabilitation. At the time, many treatments focused on stretching and strengthening the injured muscle in isolation. Patients often returned to activity quickly, only to suffer repeat injuries.

Dr. Best and his colleagues took a different approach. They compared traditional rehabilitation with a program centered on progressive agility and trunk stabilization. The novel approach was designed to improve how the body moves as a coordinated system.

The results were striking. While both groups of participants returned to activity in similar timeframes, patients in the agility and stabilization program were far less likely to reinjure their hamstring in the critical early weeks after returning and over the course of a year. In contrast, reinjury rates were dramatically higher among those following the traditional program.

Dr. Best’s research revealed recovery is not just about healing an injury. It needs to restore function, stability and confidence.

“That paper is one of my top three most-cited,” he said. “I just finished leading an executive summary for the NBA on acute muscle strain injuries. It’s neat to think that study from 20 years ago would carry forward to today.”

Today, the principles from that research are embedded in rehabilitation programs worldwide, helping patients minimize repeat injuries and return more safely to the activities they value.

Mentorship as a Legacy

If Dr. Best’s research changed how injuries are treated, colleagues say his mentorship has changed the people who will carry the field forward.

“He sets a very high bar,” said Lee Kaplan, M.D., the director of the UM Sports Medicine Institute, a close friend whose relationship with Dr. Best extends back more than 25 years to their time at the University of Wisconsin. “He’s right there as a mentor, with the students and young researchers, writing papers, editing and helping them connect their work to patient care.”

Dr. Lee Kaplan in his white clinic coat — Dr. Lee Kaplan says Dr. Best’s mentorship approach “sets a very high bar.”

For Dr. Best, that work is deeply personal. The guidance he received early in his own career shaped his path, and he sees mentorship as a responsibility.

“The opportunity to pay it forward has been one of the most gratifying things for me,” he said. “Success is not the end, it’s the journey. For me, that’s been the most gratifying piece: what it took to receive that award.”

He has made that philosophy tangible at Miami, mentoring students, fellows and junior faculty, many of whom have gone on to successful careers of their own.

As Dr. Best reflects on his career, his focus has shifted even more toward that legacy, and a quote from Winston Churchill, another man whose life was defined by service.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give,” said Dr. Best. “I don’t need another grant as the senior investigator or another paper as first author. My legacy is to help others.”