SHAPE Approach

Integrated Therapy and Training (ITT) – Personalized From Head to Toe SHAPE specializes in the integration of physical therapy with high performance personal training. Our approach and system is a key part of what separates us from the rest of the field. Our ITT system and approach will enhance your quality of life by optimizing your health and performance while also focusing on injury prevention. All of our therapists and conditioning specialists combine the techniques of various disciplines, ensuring the most comprehensive personalized program is provided to you, yielding effective results for numerous goals including rehabilitation, weight loss, injury prevention and sport performance optimization. Our approach and system begins with your Health and Wellness Assessment that is comprised of a fitness and lifestyle evaluation with one of our highly trained conditioning specialists followed by a medical and sports injury history and biomechanical scan by one of our Integrated Therapists and Trainers. As well, a complimentary nutrition consultation is available for each client, which can be set up with one of our nutritionists at your convenience. This will help you become aware of and evaluate your current eating habits, as well as provide an opportunity to discuss ways in which your current daily diet can be modified or adapted to achieve the best possible results from your personalized training program. In order for the SHAPE Team to develop and design the best personalized therapy and training program for you, we must first gain a full understanding of how you move and function from head to toe. The assessment consists of the following components: medical history, body composition and measurements, lower and upper body strength tests, core stability, previous sports injury evaluation, health risk assessment and a biomechanical scan. All of our personalized programs are overseen by a therapist (chiropractor or physiotherapist), a regulated health care professional, who ensures that your program is functionally designed to simulate movement in both everyday life and sport. Our ITT program follows 4 main principles known as PARS: Posture – Muscle Balance Alignment – Joint Structure and Function Range of Motion – Joint Range of Motion and Muscle Flexibility Stability – Core Balance Our therapists and conditioning specialists will analyze your PARS during your first treatment/session utilizing a functional movement screen consisting of nine different tests. Should any pain or limitation be detected, we will proceed to integrate your training with therapy treatments to ensure your pain is alleviated and the problem does not recur. Furthermore, corrective exercise techniques will be used throughout your High Performance Personal Training (HPPT) sessions to address any limitations found through your functional movement screen in conjunction with addressing your fitness or sport-specific goals. SHAPE HPPT is based on the best available scientific research which demonstrates that high intensity functional exercise is far superior to any other exercise modality with respect to achieving a leaner, stronger and athletically balanced body. All training programs begin with a dynamic warm-up followed by circuit based training moving from lower body to upper exercises to create peripheral heart action which creates a metabolic effect that increases your strength, endurance, speed and decreases your lipid profile. In addition, HPPT burns the most amount of calories and changes your gene pool on the cellular level (increased mitochondria), which ultimately makes you look and feel younger! Our therapists treat any limitations or dysfunctions found through your PARS assessment utilizing various bodywork modalities. The SHAPE therapy system has been developed to provide you with the most cutting-edge techniques to alleviate your pain, dysfunction or simply to enhance your kinematics in as little time as possible. The best available research has conveyed that manual therapy and acupuncture are the best methods used to treat these limitations while combining exercise to retrain the proper movement patterns. Registered Massage Therapy, Nutrition and Spa treatments will also be utilized to enhance recovery and regeneration. How the SHAPE PARS system applies to both training and therapy: Training: Posture and Alignment – Corrective dynamic exercises and stretches consisting of squatting, lunging, balancing, rotating, pushing and pulling movements will be utilized to address your muscle balance and joint structure and function. Range of Motion / Flexibility – Foam Roller Exercises, The Stick, Active Isolated Stretching Techniques (AIS) and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) stretching will be utilized to enhance muscle recovery and regeneration in conjunction with increasing your flexibility Stability – Stabilization exercises and functional fitness exercises will be implemented throughout your training program along with corrective exercises – all programs begin in Stage 1 addressing Muscle Endurance, Activation and Stabilization ... Read More Therapy: Posture – Soft tissue techniques such as Active Release Techniques (ART®) in conjunction with Medical Acupuncture/Intramuscular stimulation to reduce muscle tightness and stiffness Alignment – Manual Therapy such as mobilizations and manipulation for joint structure and function Range of Motion/Flexibility – Stretching techniques such as AIS and PNF to reduce tissue stiffness and increase range of motion Stability – Core Stabilization Exercises as everything starts from the core for muscle activation and stabilization