Blog Posts

Musings about movement therapy and therapists, proactive and preventative health care, ideal clients and client outcomes

Just Breathe

As I worked with two different clients this week, I realized something that I hadn’t thought about in a while. Both clients presented with very similar chronic pain patterns. And this week for some reason their pain seemed to be much worse than usual.

What if I could help them lower the activity of their ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response - the activity of their sympathetic nervous system?

While we spoke about their past few days, I realized that their pain was idiopathic -...

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Sensory Motor Amnesia: Our Bodies Are Wiser Than We Give Them Credit For

In Greek mythology there is a riddle attributed to Sophocles who composed the riddle of the Sphinx:

‘What is it that has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? Oedipus replied, ‘The human body.’

From crawling to walking on two feet to eventually needing a cane, our bodies are a beautiful riddle to be enjoyed, explored and to sometimes solve as we journey through life. For some of us this means exploring the very upper limits of human...

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Five Things That Might Surprise You About Fascia

Fascia is the term used to describe ALL the tissues throughout our bodies. Most of us picture fascia as a Spider-Man suit worn just under the skin. We imagine fascia surrounding our muscles, organs and bones - but it’s really so much more!

Some fascia is incredibly dense, like bone. Other fascia is very delicate, like the tissue surrounding our organs. This almost magical substance serves us like a highway. It transmits biochemical signals that control the sensory and motor pathways in...

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Have You Done A Self-Movement Screen?

Have you ever tried to do a test of your own functional movement? Good luck.

Maybe you're trying to figure out how to do a movement screen on a client using Zoom on a small laptop screen? How’s that working for you? 

Our body’s ability to be both stable AND move at the same time is quite a trick! How objective do you think your movement assessment measures can be as you squint to see your client as closely as possible from afar? You’re likely looking at your client in a...

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Why New Grads Can Benefit From An RKin Exam Prep Course

blog course exam r.kin study May 27, 2021

Congratulations! After four long years of hard work, late nights and litres of coffee, you’re ready to graduate and begin your career as a kinesiologist. Yay, you! But first, if you want to practice in Ontario, you have to pass the College of Kinesiologists of Ontario’s entry to practice exam. And let me tell you, it’s a doozy. 

Now, I’m sure at this point you can talk for hours about why the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, you’ve mastered stats...

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The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

Ever hear that the best way to get through a tough time is just to keep going? Just barrel through and not look back? Or the more enlightened version: that the only way out is through?

That’s well-intentioned advice, but it doesn’t always help when the experience is uncomfortable, pulling you in different directions and feels painfully slow. When you’re in the thick of a crappy situation you want out NOW and the last thing you want to do is sit in that discomfort.

What you...

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Are Compensations Helping or Hurting Our Bodies?

 

When we’re not looking, physical compensations start to change our anatomy and possibly even our physiology. Our bodies are SO good at adapting that we are often not even aware of how subtle the changes are! We may be using entirely new muscles and also not using the right muscles in the right order to perform the tasks we need to do every single day.

So how do we detect these subtle changes, and how do we address them to prevent long term strain and possibly injury and pain? ...

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Get Quiet and Listen to the Clues

 

Self-care, awareness, mental health month, end of exams, start of the next phase of your life ...

We’ve all been there: ignoring our body’s demand to flip the laptop closed, turn over the phone on the nightstand, turn off the TV, step away from the fridge, get up from the sofa and go for a walk or to bed.

I get it, and I’m sure you do too. Tough times mean pulling out all our tried-and-true coping strategies, as well as looking for all kinds of adaptations just to get...

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Book Review: Change Maker by Dr. John Berardi, PhD

blog book review Apr 29, 2021

 

If you’re trying to figure out how to turn your passion for health and fitness into a career that not only pays the bills, but has purpose and makes a positive impact in people’s lives, then look no further than this book. 

It was SO good - I listened to the audiobook AND THEN I bought the ‘book book’ (as my mother-in-law says). I love when audiobooks are recorded by the author. John’s voice is very easy to listen to, his cadence is great, and he has...

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Are Kinesiologists And Physiotherapists More Similar Than Different?

One of the toughest questions any kinesiologist or physiotherapist can get is: 

‘What is the difference between a kinesiologist and a physiotherapist?’

Cue the internal eye roll and the big sigh - am I right?

I think my very favourite client responses when someone phones during our home based sessions and asks what the client is doing is, "I can't talk now, I'm doing physio with my kin." or "My kinesiologist is here to help me with my physio exercises." HOLY SMOKES 

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