Interview with the Founder of Athletic Physical Therapy Athletic Physical Therapy, under the aegis of Stephen Clark, PT, DPT, MHS, OCS, MBA as its owner and Clinical Director, has quietly become the rehabilitation and preventative care center of choice. Athletic Physical Therapy has its new state of the art facilities in West Los Angeles inside Elio's Fitness For Success, and also in Westlake Village, located inside of the GET FIT! Athletic Training Center. Athletic PT routinely treats a host of professional athletes, Olympic medalists, movie stars and weekend warriors who spend a lifetime punishing their bodies while at the same time relying on them. The philosophy espoused by Clark and his carefully selected staff of licensed physical therapists is that no one should settle for anything less than a full recovery. Physical therapy is the balance between stimulating the body's natural healing mechanism through hands-on treatment and therapeutic exercise and preventing over-stimulation and irritation of the injured tissue(s). Simply put, if you don't get to the injury with treatment and movement, the body's natural healing mechanism will not be stimulated and the injury will therefore not heal. Clark's developed this new paradigm of physical therapy through his personal experience of recovering from injuries and his dedication to the field of physical therapy. " I have successfully recovered from countless sports and orthopedic injuries. Through my years of hands-on treatment and extensive education, I have a unique approach to physical therapy that gets faster and more complete results than traditional treatments." The most successful outcomes are directly related to having "Your Own Physical Therapist." Successful results are achieved by changing patient treatment until maximum results are obtained. The best way to accomplish this is by continuous feedback from the patient, and modification of the treatment by the therapist. Clark tells patients that it will take up to three visits before he can apply the best possible combination of treatment techniques with the appropriate "dose" of therapeutic exercise. Once this balance is obtained, fast and effective results are sure to follow. If a therapist has to start from the beginning on each visit, because they have never seen this patient before, results are significantly and negatively delayed. "A patient must know that 'Pain is Your Friend.' It sounds funny, but nothing could be further from the truth," says Clark. The pain will tell you how to heal yourself if you know how to interpret your pain. Pain is the body's answer to telling the brain that some type of injury or tissue breakdown is occurring. The only way to reverse this process is to avoid provoking the tissue, listen to your body's pain signal, and alter your behavior and activities. If the therapist does not teach this to the patient, and if the patient does not adhere to the concept of avoiding painful activities, once again, results are significantly and negatively delayed. Active rehabilitation is also essential on the road to recovery. All of us live and work in a world of gravity. If the body is not properly positioned, coordinated, and strengthened to counter these natural forces, tissue breakdown will occur. Moving the body through healthy activity and having it prepared to meet these daily forces, is the best way to eliminate and prevent injury. Any treatment program that does not involve functional strengthening will eventually fail as gravity takes its toll. Aggressive treatment is the key to returning to normal activity level. Traditional physical therapy follows age-old protocols that have not been advanced for sometime. Physical therapists are generally cautious by nature, which eventually delays the recovery process. The most effective treatment is the treatment that stops just short of provoking the injury. It's a thin line, but skilled and knowledgeable therapists are able to apply a treatment that stimulates the healing mechanism, without provoking or irritating the injured tissue. In order to be this aggressive, it is imperative that the patient understands the nature and behavior of their pain and that the therapist is the same for every visit. "No one should have to live with pain," says Clark, "It is my job to make old injuries go away and ensure that new ones do not occur." Click here to find out more about the founder, Stephen Clark, MHS, PT, OCS, MBA.