What to Expect

The Initial Assessment

For the first session, expect the unexpected. That is, it will probably be nothing quite like you’ve experienced before. No candles, calming images, and open spaces of a massage treatment room nor cardio and weight machines of a fitness club. No one comes here to relax or workout. They come here to solve a problem, usually one that has been bugging them for a long time. This is the focus of the Soarbody treatment room – to solve that problem. You are surrounded by educational and testing materials and most of the action during the first session happens over a desk where we wrestle with that problem. The fold-up training table in the middle of the room is used mostly for orthopedic assessments during the first session and can be broken down in a heartbeat for assessment of conditioning or demonstration of exercise technique. Most of the initial testing and treatment occurs with the client in shorts and T-shirt or sports bra. The first session usually lasts between 90 and 120 minutes and occasionally, but rarely, less than 90 minutes. The clients goals are established after taking a complete history of activities, injuries, and surgeries, performing both a postural analysis and orthopedic manual clinical tests, and finally performing a strength and conditioning assessment relevant to the client’s needs. If manual treatment is appropriate, it is then performed.

Subsequent Sessions

Within 48 hours of the session, an initial assessment is emailed to the client outlining the test results and their indications. Specific recommendations are made at this time. Recommendations can be corrective exercises, continued manual therapy, a referral, all three or a combination of the three. Exercises are assigned in the second session and the client is required to book this appointment so the exercises can be presented and then practiced by the client to demonstrate the competence and understanding necessary to carry out the exercise safely and effectively at their training facility. If an extensive training program is needed, the client is referred out to one of many excellent trainers on our referral list.

Manual therapy is usually part of the dynamic muscular therapy program. Nobody books a random massage session – it must be part of an overall performance program. The goals of the client’s program dictate what type of manual therapy is needed and when. The only exception to this is when we are working as part of a rehabilitation team. The strength and conditioning specialist is in the unique position of participating in the rehabilitation program of an athlete as they are transitioning back to the fully functional stage. In this case, the client may schedule manual therapy by itself as they are completing their cycle of physical therapy. Close communication and coordination between the PT or ATC and Soarbody Therapeutics is required in this case.