For Dr. Masi Reynolds, fixing an injury and restoring a person to health aren’t necessarily the same thing. His work in orthopedic sports medicine has put him alongside professional athletes whose careers can depend on how successfully they recover, but those experiences have also convinced him that medicine needs to look beyond the ligament, bone, or joint that happens to be injured.
Reynolds, founder of North Performance, has expanded his approach over the past decade to consider what is happening throughout the patient. After an ACL reconstruction, for example, he isn’t only interested in whether the repaired knee is structurally sound. He wants to know how quickly the graft is incorporating, whether inflammation is under control, how muscle and blood flow are returning, and what might be happening with nutrition, gut health, and the patient’s mental state.
The objective is not simply getting someone through rehabilitation. It’s creating the best conditions possible for the body to recover.
Recovery Has a Window
Elite athletes make the urgency of recovery obvious. Their bodies are tied directly to their livelihoods, and lost time can mean lost opportunities. Reynolds believes, however, that the underlying lesson applies far beyond professional sports.
Someone who sprains an ankle may recover enough to resume normal activity but still experience stiffness or discomfort months later. Reynolds points to the early period after an injury as particularly important because biological healing doesn’t continue at the same intensity indefinitely. His approach is to make the most of that recovery period rather than accepting lingering problems as inevitable.
Long-term joint health is another part of that equation. Reynolds describes articular cartilage as the “holy grail” of the joint because of how difficult it is to restore once it has been lost. Protecting it, when possible, means thinking beyond whether someone can walk, run, or compete again today. The decisions made during recovery can affect how that joint functions years later.
The MRI Isn’t the Whole Patient
One experience early in Reynolds’ medical training helped shape that thinking. He remembers seeing patients whose symptoms seemed almost completely disconnected from what their imaging suggested.
One patient could have severe degenerative changes in a joint and still report running a marathon. Another might show much milder changes yet arrive unable to move comfortably without assistance. If the X-ray alone determined how someone should feel, those situations shouldn’t make sense.
That contrast pushed Reynolds to ask what else was influencing the outcome. The answer could involve inflammation, cellular processes, nutrition, autoimmune conditions, energy levels, mental health, or other factors that aren’t captured by simply pointing to an image of a knee.
For Reynolds, that doesn’t make imaging unimportant. It means imaging is one piece of a much larger picture.
A Patient Problem Became North Performance
The same philosophy eventually led Reynolds into an unexpected business. Two of his patients, Mike Lucas and Yuri Kirov, were undergoing extensive treatment and following supplementation routines designed to support their recovery. The problem wasn’t necessarily knowing what to take. It was actually taking everything consistently.
Traveling with numerous bottles, measuring products, and remembering an elaborate routine quickly became cumbersome. They asked Reynolds whether there was a simpler option that combined what they were already using. When he couldn’t find the product he wanted, the conversation shifted toward creating one.
That became North Performance.
Working with researchers and manufacturing partners, Reynolds began developing products around what he describes as seven core areas, including brain, heart, gut and joint health, along with recovery, electrolytes, and antioxidant support. The company ultimately chose formats designed around convenience, including effervescent tablets that dissolve in water and a powdered product aimed at more intensive training and recovery routines.
For Reynolds, convenience wasn’t an afterthought. A supplement can have an impressive ingredient list, but if the routine is unpleasant or complicated enough that people stop following it, the theoretical benefits don’t matter much.
Giving Athletes More Than an Endorsement
North Performance also took an unusual approach to working with professional athletes. Rather than treating them solely as paid endorsers, Reynolds says founding athletes received equity in the business.
That distinction matters to him because athletic careers can be short. The transition out of professional competition can bring financial pressure alongside a much deeper question of identity for someone who has spent most of a lifetime training for one pursuit.
Ownership gives participating athletes the possibility of remaining connected to the company beyond their competitive careers. It also creates a stronger incentive for the athletes representing the brand to genuinely believe in what they’re using.
Remembering What Feeling Good Feels Like
Reynolds’ larger message extends beyond surgery, professional sports, or supplements. He believes people can gradually become accustomed to feeling less capable than they once did. Fatigue, stiffness, brain fog, and other limitations can slowly become someone’s definition of normal.
His work is built around challenging that assumption. Sometimes improvement means surgery or structured rehabilitation. In other situations, it may mean exercise, better nutrition, time outdoors, or simply becoming more consistent with the basics.
The goal isn’t to turn every patient into an elite athlete. It’s to borrow something valuable from the way elite performers approach their bodies: recovery deserves attention before a problem becomes permanent, and staying active for as long as possible is worth planning for.
Want more Innovation Saves Lives? Check out the articles or head over to Apple Podcasts.
