It was an absolute pleasure to be able to give a talk at my former employer Innovative Fitness. I have stayed in touch with manager Brett Hodge since I left and have even solicited his advice over the past couple months as I have transitioned into a managerial role at Physio Room.

My time at IF was invaluable. I learnt a lot about customer care, business operations, and self discipline. All tools that I continue to use to this day.

The gym holds weekly staff meetings that range from group workouts and lunches, to inservices given by other professionals. As someone who to use to be on the other side listening to physios, it was very cool to be able to do one myself.

My talk focused on three things, the state of physiotherapy today, how we manage pain and load, and how this relates to trainers.

I have discussed what good physio looks like in a previous post, but in boils down to an attention to evidence based medicine (how and why things work – checkout Greg Lehman), our growing skepticism, our focus on education and movement as the basis for good care and our motivation for exceptional care.

I then discussed simple ways for trainers to monitor acute and chronic load and the benefits to using the rating of perceived exertion (checkout Tim Gabbetts work). We also discussed the importance of recognizing when to go easy on a client. ie when they have come back from holiday. It may seem obvious but sometimes we are so keen to get back on the horse we over do it…it is human nature to want to make up for lost time:(

Lastly, I discussed the importance of loading during an injury and how trainers can modify loads to help calm a tissue down and allow people to move more with less pain. There were good questions, a little debate, and some good interactions.

If they invite me back, I would love to discuss some of the science around foam rolling, the FMS, and bio-mechanics.

I will always hold training dear to my heart and I will always recommend IF to anyone looking for fantastic one on one training. They provide more than just a good workout!

Thanks again to Brett and the team at IF for having me in.

Keep moving,

Dave