#75666
AvatarNathan Richer
Participant

How to identify a “good” practitioner in any of these areas? Should I expect to see immediate improvement? If I don’t, should I move on to someone else?


I think there are a lot of ways to tell. the first is only see people via referral, or from people who gained real success from a practictioner and/or their method. and you have to watch out for the fact that the method often is not at fault but the person who is using it on you. it’s like the difference bet seeing Kstarr and some guy who just took his CF move/mob trainer course. 

the second i would say is their attitude. bed side manners for practictioners is critical in my book. i have left arrogant, my way or highway practictioners who thought they knew everything, and people who didn’t want to listen to what i had to say.

the last is the hardest. how long should you stay with someone to know if you should leave and try something new? it depends on a lot of different factors and may mean you’ll need to educate yourself better. for manual manipulation like ART/graston, you should see results immediately. however, there are nuances. for example, i tried a graston person who scraped me too hard, too much beyond what he should have done. i was literally injured from his treatment and needed time to heal from that. so i guess that is another factor – did this person actually hurt me? i’ve heard from other people of their experiences from PTs who stretched them too hard and they pulled something during that session. It sucks to hear of these things happen. hopefully you’ll find someone who knows enough not to injury you even if they can’t help you.

for longer term things like posture, hopefully you can find a good person/method to help with that. you may need to test several and see if they resonate. If they are producing results, but stopping at some point, you may use that as a signal to try another method/practictioner/trainer.  if the person you’re working with doesn’t have solutions to your issues, definitely time to find someone new who will have a different viewpoint.


What about Grey Cook / FMS-related stuff? Would this fall into the category of long term postural restoration? Am I covering this by training well and focusing on great form or should I see a specialist to help correct side-to-side imbalances?

I am a fan of FMS and i certified in level 1 and 2. as with any method, it can work great or you may need to try something else. it also falls to the practictioner on their implementation of the screen and the correctives to you. what’s nice about FMS is that it is highly systematized and easy for a non clinician trainer to implement.  the early stuff in FMS doesn’t have a postural focus although that is often the result. However some of their recent work does start to really involve good posture.  Their latest DVD shows some work with kettlebells with Gray Cook and Dan John that has as a result posture improvement and correction.

This seems like a major time commitment. I can train 3-5 times per week (gym). I can plan on a 1/2 hour session at home per day. And I can make time for one appointment a week. Any suggestions on how to fit it all in?

Quit your job and become a full time athlete! Then be pampered like the pros!

just kidding – do what you can. try taking classes on the weekend, like workshops.  if you can find a chiro that also does ART and/or Graston (like i did), you can get all of that in one appt. Hopefully a lot of the work can be done while you train. OTOH, i am a proponent of 24/7 training – shouldn’t you be training good posture all day long with standing/walking/sitting?