How to Find the Right Practitioner that Fits Your Unique Needs

There is often confusion in the health & fitness industry amongst client’s & practitioners in who does what and who’s best to see for any given injury or issue.

Like most things there isn’t a strict right and wrong answer and with so many practitioners scope overlapping through qualifications & experience it makes it even harder to know what’s the best course of action.

Soft tissue therapy & Personal Training in practice

Within my area of expertise as a soft tissue massage therapist & personal trainer with a specific focus on running and rehab people often ask me who do they need to see for X or Y. Most mistake my broad knowledge in the pre mentioned areas that they think that I am a physio, which I absolutely lack the clinical expertise, knowledge and ability to diagnose. This doesn’t stop me from knowing the key red flags for certain injuries & conditions but this is when I refer on to someone who has the best capacity to help the client more effectively. Hopefully the client can continue to work with me so I can support them moving forward in conjunction with the other practitioner, with the aim of accelerating the best outcome.

As I see it, below is a broad overview of a few commonly confused professions & what they do (not exclusively though as there are a lot of inter-variation of clinician’s skill sets):

Massage therapist (sports/ deep tissue/ holistic)- a therapist who works via the medium of massage using different techniques to achieve improved range of movement, reduced discomfort, increased confidence and wellbeing, among many more benefits. Not qualified to diagnose.

Soft tissue massage therapist – a therapist who uses the medium of massage for the same purposes as above but with the added expertise and knowledge to identify key red flags and implement rehabilitation exercises to assist with common strength or capacity related soft tissue issues. Not qualified to diagnose.

Physiotherapist -registered profession of clinicians that work across 3 main stream of physio: respiratory, neurological and musculoskeletal. Qualified to diagnose and use a range of methods to treat clients including soft tissue work & corrective rehabilitation exercises. Able to refer clients to other arms of primary care and may be able to perform dry needling, ultra sound, joint mobilisation & manipulations if necessary.

Sports therapist – qualified & specialise in 1 arm of the 3 physiotherapists are, Musculoskeletal. Qualified to diagnose and use a range of methods to treat a clients including soft tissue work & corrective rehabilitation exercises. Able to refer clients to other arms of primary care and may be able to perform dry needling, ultra sound, joint mobilisation & manipulations if necessary.

Chiropractor – registered profession of clinicians that focus on the nervous system (brain, spinal cord) as the main pathway of disfunction. Are qualified to diagnose and refer clients on to other arms of primary care. They often use joint manipulations to address identified issues and may use soft tissue work or corrective exercises. May be able to perform dry needling

Osteopath - registered profession of clinicians that look at the human body more holistically but with a focus towards neuromuscular interaction of the nervous and muscular system. Are qualified to diagnose and use a range of methods to treat a clients including mobilisations, soft tissue work and more often than not corrective rehabilitation exercises. Able to refer clients to other arms of primary care and may be able to perform dry needling joint & manipulations if necessary.

Personal trainer – profession that works with client’s to improve their fitness/ health towards their specific goals via a training regime to suit the individual. Knowledgeable in exercises and training systems to attain various goals but unable to diagnose specific conditions but are able to identify red flags and get the client to self-refer onwards in primary care if needed.

Strength & conditioning coach  - a profession that has the same skills as above but normally more knowledgeable in the application to a more specific athletic population to improve performance.

What then gets confusing is the wide skills & qualifications each of these practitioners may have. You have different bands or skills of physios, some who can do intra-joint injections, ultrasound,  or manipulations and mobilisations like Osteopaths and chiropractors, whilst others won’t.

On top of objective measures such as skill, qualifications and experience that you have to consider is bias towards certain course of treatment & clashes in personality. For example, a chiropractor may or may not be open to the use of corrective exercise & soft tissue massage alongside their manipulations as the most effective way to treat a client. You could have a very knowledgeable PT who is a huge advocate of heavy lifting due to the evidence behind its effectiveness so makes all client’s to do it even though some may not like that type of training. You may just not click or like the personality of a clinician that you have been recommended highly by friends and colleagues.

Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to meet you prince. 

From my experience of 13 years in the area of health and fitness, even when you find a very good/skilled clinician, there has to be a good rapport and working relationship for the most effective outcomes to be reached. This is starting to be shown in research too. This is like no other working relationship, why do you go back to your hairdresser? Barbor? Dr? Dentist? Yoga class? Spin class? Etc. Its not just dictated by skill, availability or cost. But characteristics of personality start to also play a big part like being reliable, fun, easy going, shared interests, calm etc  

It is about getting a balance in skill, knowledge and personability to effectively make the best working relationship with the practitioner and between practitioners you work with if seeing say a PT and physio at the same time. Sometimes this takes some time to get right and is unfortunately a process of trial and error, which can incur cost if seeing them privately, but clinicians shouldn’t be offended if you go elsewhere or question your suggested course of action, as ultimately, we are there to best serve the client to get the best outcome for them.

You will find that by kissing a few frogs to get to your prince you will learn a lot about yourself in the process, possibly questioning your own biases and explore different avenues along the way. I know I have over the years.