Functional Movement and Sports at Life Therapies | Ottawa

Here at Life Therapies, we focus on functional movement and sports, treating the body as a whole. Our natural techniques help to restore and increase range of motion while helping to build muscle. When you play sports and as we age, we need to have mobility and stability in order to accomplish daily tasks; however, over time, many of us develop movement patterns that will often tend to cause more harm than good to our bodies. At our clinic in Ottawa, we are dedicated to treating elite and professional athletes.

These patterns could be because of an injury, asymmetries of the muscles or body, and/or balance or motor control dysfunction. This leads to the body compensating to counteract these deficiencies, which, in turn, can become worse and start to affect other areas of your body. Detecting compensation can be quite difficult without treatment, often going unnoticed until injury or re-injury occurs.

A common and well-documented example of compensation is the effect of ankle injuries on the entire body. The stiffness, balance issues, and weakness from an ankle injury can result in real problems in the hips as they begin to weaken. If that weakness goes undetected and is aggravated by another physical activity, the lack of strength in the hip may result in over rotation of the lumbar spine and a subsequent disc injury. Full resolution of the disc injury may not be possible until all issues with the ankle and initial injury have been resolved.

This is why, at Life Therapies, we are dedicated to treating the body in its entirety. Our goal is to ensure proper and safe movement in all activities and then to slowly begin adding resistance to help teach and strengthen muscles and correct any imbalances. This results in optimizing function, efficiency and performance. Attending one-on-one functional movement and sports sessions with our therapists will allow you to be fully prepared to exercise independently or with a personal trainer as you return to active daily life. You will also feel confident that you are not moving in a manner that may be causing injury or leading to decreased performance.

Because we treat the system as a whole, your functional movement and sports treatments will often be multi-tiered and may include:

• Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA);
• Functional Movement Screen (FMS);
• Y balance testing – assessment for injury prevention;
• Proprioception and balance re-training;
• Active living and sports related injury treatment;
• Rehabilitation, and;
• Therapeutic yoga.