Physio First Conference - A Great Success!

We had a great show this weekend at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. We were at the Physio First Conference to talk to Physios for the first time en mass about our Biomechanics Screening courses and their application to the clinical field. The interest was very positive and we are looking to set up many courses for Physios and other Therapists in the near future.

As many of your will be aware, one of our partner products is called the Flexi-bar . This is a flexible bar that provides the user with a very effective way of stabilising the shoulder and spine particularly. Its quite new to the physio worlds and went down a storm. As soon as they saw the product in action the biomechanical and clinical benefits were obvious. In fact they were suggesting applications to us!

Also this weekend we had a Normalise Course in Bristol which was run by Ros and Rachel, which went down really well. We had 2 Podiatrists, 4 athletics coaches and 8 personal trainers on the course. One of the great things about the courses that we are told by participants is the variety of backgrounds that people have who attend the courses. This then leads into some great discussions about the application of the biomechanics content that we deliver. One area of interest is usually the conversations around the application of orthotics to the sporting arena and how they can be so helpful and yet sometimes can cause all sorts of problems. When podiatrists sit the courses they start to have a better understanding of the big picture and how the pelvic biomechanics can influence the prescription of orthotics and how undertaking the full biomechanical picture can help orthotic prescription and reduce the risk of the athlete or gym-goer reacting negatively to them.

FitPro Spring Convention - Wow What a Great Show!

This was the first time we have been to FitPro and we were overwhelmed by the response from Personal Trainers (PT’s) and health clubs. We presented a technical presentation to a very enthusiastic audience, despite it being at 8am on the Sunday morning (and this was definitely the morning after the night before!). We also had an exhibition stand. This was very busy all weekend and was supposed to close at 3.30 on Sunday afternoon, and while other exhibitors were closing up at lunch time, we had guys queuing until 4pm to find out more about what we do.

The PT’s were fascinated by the concept of the biomechanical preparation they can provide for their clients and how it would improve not only their exercise prescription but also help manage the biomechanical causes of the many ailments that their clients often suffer from. As always we made it clear that the biomechanics programmes are not deigned in this context for treating people’s injuries, the whole idea is to help reduce the biomechanical causes, which can have a profound effect. We were providing free biomechanical screens (tests) to delegates to demonstrate how simple they were and quick to perform, despite being biomechanically valid.

It was also good to catch up with our friends from Flexi-bar and Power Plate and look at more ways that we can work together. In fact Flexi-bar very kindly donated a flexi-bar as one of our prizes which was won by a delighted PT!

Now we’re spending a lot of time working through the massive amount of interest and contacting people to provide them the info they’re after. If you’re one of them, you’ll be hearing from us soon!

FitPro Spring Convention

Well, it’s that time of year again and we’re busy preparing for FitPro, the one of the industries main fitness shows in the UK. As well as exhibiting at the show, we have a demonstration area where we can show PTs and coaches the best biomechanical screening techniques for their clients and athletes to help improve their functional training programmes. So please drop by so we can explain the sort of biomechanical screening that you can do to help your exercise prescription.

We will be joined on the stand by our friends from Flexi-bar from time to time over the FitPro weekend and we’ll be discussing how we link their flexi-bar and XCO products into our training courses.

Also, we’ve been invited to present at the show too. I’ll be presenting at 8am on Sunday 13th April. Yes, we’ll be discussing functional training and no doubt we’ll be discussing core training too. But perhaps more importantly we’ll be talking about how all the functional training in the world and all the core training in the world can work against you if you have poor biomechanics. If you try and pattern particular functional movements, in 3 planes using multi joint patterns for example, and your client has biomechanical problems (which is very common), you can be sure that they will ‘break’ or get injured sooner or later. Functional training is not new and we’ve been using it in rehab for years, so we cannot underestimate its importance, however as good as functional training and screening is, it’s critical that your clients are prepared biomechanically, otherwise you’ll find the functional training you are doing is merely teaching your client faulty movement patterns. And this ultimately leads to injury.

Although biomechanics can be very complex, and indeed the principles of our work is heavily research lead, the actual practical application is very simple. We have been teaching PTs and coaches the biomechanical screens for some time now and the feedback is incredibly positive – please drop by if you can, I think you’ll find our evidence based work very interesting and will hopefully help you think further out of the box than you already do.