How Movement Driven came to be (The Inspiration behind Mvmt Driven)
Merging Sports Performance with Injury Reduction
The Beginning
As a 15-year-old athlete, it was only natural to be influenced by friends going to the gym, striving for greater size and muscle. It encouraged me to try for the same goals, needing to be bigger, faster and stronger. I desired a higher level of performance on the baseball field, which would allow me to compete at more advanced levels.
In the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school, I trained three days a week with a physical therapist offering strength and conditioning training and rehab to athletes. The way he trained was vastly different than what I witnessed of my friends. It wasn’t simply about “putting on size” or getting faster. It was more than the common mentality of “putting on size”. This physical therapist provided depth into my specific sport and was able to strip down broad movements and body mechanics emulated in baseball, to basic building blocks required for such motions. Initially I felt concerned because I knew my friends were becoming stronger, which made me feel I should be “doing whatever they’re doing”.
I decided to continue with this PT and his training program and as the weeks progressed, I began to realize how much thought and intention went into his methodologies. There was such specification in this program tailored for me, my body, and what I needed to give me the ability to perform greater.
I learned what strength and conditioning training could be when approached through a different lens. This mundane principal of needing bigger biceps and pecs to perform better was not necessary, in order for me to attain my sought-after goals. Okay, so maybe I would look better at the beach, which I wasn’t completely against, considering I was still a teenager in high school, but there was so much more complexity involved.
Throughout my time training with this PT, I learned new ways to move and be more explosive. How to be agile and balanced. How to reduce energy consumption through moving more efficiently. These attributes not only prepared me to be greater for sport (i.e., run faster, jump higher, swing harder, etc.), but also enabled me to stay healthy and ready to compete even late in the season.
I learned the parts of my body needing increased mobility and flexibility and the parts requiring more stability and strength. We worked on coordination and motor control, leading to improvements of my performance on the field. We developed recovery strategies, in order to properly take care of my body’s physicality. My experience here truly enhanced my athletic performance the following season. And this experience led me to pursue a career in physical therapy. The Awakening
The first several years of my career were spent in typical outpatient therapy clinics. I was “stuck” juggling 3-4 patients at a time, limiting my ability to provide the individualized attention needed for adequate rehabilitation. I felt like insurance companies would always dictate how I should treat my patients and deferred to “cookie-cutter” treatment plans with such stringent times allotted to these patients. These limitations eliminated any opportunities to truly evaluate the athlete in, not only the injury necessitating therapy, but also preventative strategies necessary to avert further injury. Through Movement Driven Performance Physiotherapy, I now have the amazing ability to give back to athletes in my community.
We work with athletes, both young and experienced, and provide a similar experience of what I received that summer. We are able to look at your body as a whole to identify and correct areas increasing your risk of injury and areas holding you back from performing at your fullest potential. Even if you have what seems to be the best strengthening routine ever created, you may have limitations your routine hides or overlooks. That’s what we do best! Finding those missing pieces of the puzzle in order to get the whole body firing on all cylinders.
As performance physiotherapists, our knowledge and skills provide us a unique perspective when training uninjured athletes. Since our primary role is to return athletes back to the field or court, we have a unique ability when working with our healthy, uninjured athletes. At Movement Driven we design our programs with focus on reducing the risk of injury.
What’s interesting is there is a direct relationship of skills and attributes developed from injury reduction exercises that enhance performance as well. For instance, in young female athletes, poor landing mechanics can often lead to ACL injuries. If you land with the knee too straight or allow it to cave in, this drastically increases the stress placed on the ligaments in your knees. These poor movement patterns also indicate you’re moving slower, less efficiently (which means you’ll fatigue quicker), and with less explosive power and positional awareness of your body. Increasing hip strength, along with improving landing mechanics and ankle mobility, facilitates better body awareness and balance, which in turn decreases stress through the knee and directly enhances performance.
When working with our baseball players we often see decreased shoulder mobility and rotator cuff strength leading to significant shoulder and elbow injuries that then require surgery and rehab. This is the reason the two things we focus on most outside of looking at pitching mechanics when attempting to increase velocity in our pitchers is:
Improve posterior shoulder mobility
Increase rotator cuff strength, endurance, and power.
There’s a direct correlation between methodically improving performance with the mindset of preventing injury as you can see in the two examples above.
It truly is a passion of ours to keep our clients’ healthy and moving. We want to keep them on the field or on the court doing what they love. We encourage the drive and motivation necessary to stay active long-term and overall health and well-being. We are proud to serve our Northeast Florida community.
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