We all know what pain feels like, but what is it exactly and why does it occur? Pain is your brain’s response to perceived threat to the tissues of your body. It can occur for a variety of reasons, from the obvious such as trauma (macro and micro) to less obvious such as repetitive stress, habitual aberrant movement patterns or poor posture. In any case, when excessive or prolonged stress is applied to the body, your brain reacts by creating pain which compels you to stop doing whatever it is that is causing the problem. From work to sports, pain can interfere with your life in a big way as it disrupts your daily activities. Don’t worry, Functional Manual Therapy® (FMT^TM) can help get your life back on track.

Functional Manual Therapy® is not a technique or even a system of techniques. It is a unique and comprehensive approach to the art of healing and restoring function. Since its inception, only two hundred therapists worldwide have completed the thousands of hours of course work, training and mentorship to become Certified Functional Manual Therapists (CFMT). FMT^TM fuses, synthesizes and integrates all aspects of physical care. We begin with comprehensive evaluation techniques that look at every individual as completely unique. Two people with the precise same pain may have entirely different treatment needs, and we have the skills and knowledge to detect the root cause of the problem. And it doesn’t stop there. What sets us apart is that we methodically dissect your symptoms to better understand the true source of your pain. What further sets us apart is that a Functional Manual Therapist is willing to assess every tissue and movement pattern to discover that source of pain and the appropriate path to recovery.

If decreased mobility is determined to be the driver of your pain, the Functional Manual Therapist will dynamically evaluate and treat from the premise that optimum mobility requires all the tissues of the body to move and support your activities of daily living efficiently. Addressing these complex and interdependent relationships, our therapist utilizes Functional Mobilization^TM to effectively trace, isolate and mobilize restrictions found within the soft tissues, joints, nerves, viscera and vascular structures.

Lack of mobility is not the only source of pain. Simultaneous to restoring efficient mobility, the Functional Manual Therapist continuously assesses the brain and body’s ability to initiate the right muscles with appropriate strength and endurance. We call this neuromuscular control. You may be able to do a hundred sit-ups, but your deep core muscles may not be firing. You may have done months of shoulder exercises but the muscles of your shoulder blade, necessary to stabilize and protect your shoulder, may still be asleep – and you may continue to experience that nagging pain. Don’t feel bad or guilty, just know that these integral muscles need direct facilitation in specific functional patterns to wake up and work for you. Utilizing very specific manual assessment and facilitation techniques, every primary muscle group in the client’s body is evaluated and exercised in a personalized manner at VARDĀN. The catch is, even with full mobility and strong muscles, you can still have bad posture and poor movement patterns that can also cause pain. For example, the core may be firing, but your activities of daily living may not incorporate Core First® strategies. A Core First® strategy is when the brain automatically engages your core prior to any movement or activity. This gives the big “mover” muscles of the body more strength and coordination.