Total Recovery: Expert Certified Athletic Therapy for Active Lifestyles.
Meet Laura: From the Sidelines to the Starting Line
It started out so slowly that she couldn’t figure out why her hamstring started to get increasingly sore. Soon, every run felt impossible and Laura was getting frustrated with her marathon training. She tried stretching, rest and Advil and nothing was helping. She felt stuck, and was slowly losing the active identity she loved.
Then, she found Athletic Therapy.
Instead of just treating the pain, her certified athletic therapist worked backwards to get to the root of the problem. They created a progressive, movement-based rehab plan, focusing on correcting muscle imbalances and teaching her how to load her hamstring safely. After six weeks, the pain was gone and she had not only gained her strength back but the knowledge on how to prevent it from happening again.
That’s the power of athletic therapy – it’s not just about the current injury, its about rebuilding the athlete and optimizing performance long term.
What is Athletic Therapy? Getting You Back to 100%
Athletic therapy is an evidence-based approach specializing in the prevention, assessment, and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injuries. The profession is poorly named as they do not just focus on athletes, our certified athletic therapists treat everyone from professional athletes to dedicated weekend warriors and individuals who are struggling with any type of injury.
Athletic therapy focuses on how the body moves and functions. We don’t just reduce pain, we used advanced assessment and treatment techniques followed by an exercise plan to assist in returning you to your goals. We want to ensure that all of our clients are living a more active lifestyle after our treatment that is stronger, safer and faster than before.
A Brief History of Athletic Therapy
The discipline of athletic therapy has its roots in urgent care needed on the sidelines of sporting events. Originally, the focus of the profession was on taping, bracing and emergency first aid. The profession is regulated by the Canadian Athletic Therapists Association (CATA) and has evolved significantly since the early days of the profession where they were mostly involved in sport. Today, certified athletic therapists use evidence-based manual therapy and various rehabilitation techniques to manage chronic issues and accelerate recovery in a clinical setting. It is one of the most comprehensive forms of injury care available.
The Four Pillars of Athletic Therapy
An athletic therapist’s unique approach to rehabilitation provides a complete recovery, not just a temporary fix.
- Injury Assessment & Diagnosis: We use a thorough subjective history combined with various testing and movement screens to accurately diagnosis the source of your pain. Understanding the root of your pain and what is contributing is the foundation of a good plan of care.
- Active Rehabilitation: Our athletic therapists prefer active based rehabilitation with a focus on exercise prescription. We safely challenge the tissues that has been injured to rehab it to be stronger than it was before pre injury.
- Preventative Care: We can proactively screen movement to look for any future potential injury causes. This includes looking at movement, strength and mobility. A personalized program will allow you to come back stronger than ever and avoid future setbacks.
- Emergency Care Expertise: We are certified to work at sporting events (huge shout out to Kate who works the Morris Mavericks hockey team!) but that training can also be useful in a clinic setting as it allows us to assess very acute injuries and provide immediate care. This allows us to start your rehabilitation immediately.
Conditions We Treat: From Nagging Pain to Full Recovery
Our certified Athletic Therapist can treat almost any injury but we did categorize them into a few basic categories. If you are wondering whether they can help you please reach out to us!
- Common Joint Injuries: Care for any joint in the body including ligament, muscle and meniscal issues.
- Overuse Injuries (Tendinopathies): Management of stubborn tendon pain including the Achilles tendon, patellar tendinopathy (jumper’s knee), rotator cuff issues, tennis/golfer’s elbow and stubborn plantar fasciitis.
- Spinal & Core Issues: treatment for back pain (acute or chronic), pain referred from the back (sciatica) and dysfunctions in the pelvis (si joint dysfunction)
- Post-Surgical Rehabilitation: a slow, guided program after any type of surgery including (e.g. ACL reconstruction, shoulder labral repair, hip replacements, etc)
- Concussion Management: Expert assessment of the symptoms of a concussion with a clear management plan on how to make a safe return to play or work
Athletic Therapy vs. Physiotherapy: What’s the Difference?
We receive this question so frequently and thought we would address it here!
The key difference between the two professions lies in the treatment scope and the philosophy behind the treatments.
| Feature | Athletic Therapy | Physiotherapy |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Focus on musculoskeletal injuries in any patient population. Often emphasis on a more active rehab. | A physiotherapist has a larger scope of practice that includes musculoskeletal, neurological and cardiorespiratory conditions. |
| Approach | Hands on manual therapy combined with exercise prescription with the goal of restoring function. | Focuses on many modalities including manual therapy, exercise prescription. |
| Treatment Style | Focused on active based rehabilitation. | Focuses on pain management and restoring basic mobility before progressing to strengthening. |
Both professions are regulated and highly skilled with overlaps in treatment especially in a musculoskeletal population.
First Visit: What to Expect
Our goal is to make you feel comfortable from the moment you walk in the door at our clinic in Morris. Our certified athletic therapist will take you through the following at your first session.
- Detailed assessment: This starts with conducting a thorough subjective history to get to know you followed by an objective assessment including range of motion, mobility, strength, function and more. We are trying to get to the root cause of your issue.
- Initial Treatment: We always strive to provide treatment on the first day, which may include manual therapy, exercise, etc to start the healing process.
- The Plan: We will discuss in detail what we believe is going on based on our assessment findings and provide a plan that outlines realistic healing and recovery guidelines.
Meet our Athletic Therapy Team
Katarina Wiens
Kate pursued Athletic Therapy after growing up playing sports (primarily hockey and softball) and became interested in the field after seeing a wide range of injuries and how they could be managed. She has spent the last 8 years working with hockey teams (3 years working AAA through university & 5 years in the MJHL).
Our Location
Ready to Stop Sitting on the Sidelines?
Now is the time to take control of your recovery and build an exercise care plan that will last. Our certified athletic therapists are here to help you every step of the way.
Have questions about athletic therapy coverage or how we can help your specific injury?
Contact us today to speak directly with a Certified Athletic Therapist.
