Assessment
Ninety minutes, before anything is programmed.
Nobody lifts a loaded bar here before we have heard their story, read their letters and watched them move. The assessment is four parts and ends with an honest answer, which is sometimes "see a physio first", in which case the fee is refunded. If we carry on, it is credited against the programme.
The four parts
Your story, thirty minutes
What you want, what has happened to your body, what the physio or the doctor said, the scan if there is one, the medication, the fear. We write it down. Nothing you say is judged and some of it changes the programme.
How you move, forty minutes
A squat to a box, a hinge with a dowel, a press with a light bar, a row, a carry, standing on one leg, getting up off the floor. We watch, we film it on your phone for you, and we find the thing that will limit the programme and work round it.
What we measure, ten minutes
The baselines: a kettlebell deadlift, a carry for distance, sit-to-stand in thirty seconds, the single-leg stand, the stairs if there are stairs. These go in the book and get checked at six and twelve weeks.
The honest ten minutes
What we think it will take, which programme fits, what it costs, and whether we are the right people. Sometimes the answer is a physio first, or the walking group, and we say so. The programme arrives in writing within three days if you want it.
What to bring
The letters, the scan, the list of tablets, and flat shoes.
Anything a physio, a consultant or a GP has written about the joint or the condition; the bone scan report if there is one; the medication list, because some of it matters for how hard we push; and shoes with a flat sole, which is the one thing we will ask you to change. Clothes you can squat in. We have water, coffee and a shower.
- Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Saturday at 11am
- £60, credited against a programme, refunded if we say no
- The written programme within three days, if you want one
When we say no
About one in eight assessments ends with "not yet", and the fee comes back.
A joint still in acute treatment, a condition that needs a doctor's sign-off we do not have, a goal we cannot honestly serve, or a person who would be better off in a class with twenty others and some music. We say so in the last ten minutes, we say where to go instead, and we refund the sixty pounds. The people who come back a few months later with the sign-off are some of our best clients.
Start with the assessment. Ninety minutes, and an honest answer.
Your story, the letters, how you move under a light bar, four baseline measures in a book you keep, and ten minutes on what it will take and whether we are the right people. £60, credited against a programme, and refunded if we say we are not.