If someone asked you what a kinesiologist did would you be able to answer?
If the answer is no, then you wouldn’t be alone. To be completely honest before I started my kinesiology degree I didn’t fully understand what it was either!
Normally when someone asks me in my day to day life what I do, I tell them that I am a slightly more enhanced version of a personal trainer.
In simplest terms, kinesiology is the study of human movement. We study human movement in terms of what is considered “normal” and what would be considered “altered movement patterns”. Then through a variety of courses such as anatomy, injury management, exercise prescription, and many more we are taught how to take our postural observations and work to help correct those ‘altered movement patterns’. These altered postures or movement patterns could be due to a variety of reasons: postural imbalances from sport, prolonged postures based on occupation such as desk work or bending over as a hairdresser, or due to injuries from motor vehicle accidents, workplace incidents, or sporting accidents.
As a kinesiologist I have the opportunity to work in many different settings based on what my interests are. Most of my time as a kinesiologist has been spent working in clinics. My role in a clinic consists of building a caseload of clients either private, or ICBC to take through exercise programs based on injury rehab goals. I could also work with a physiotherapist as an assistant and help them with exercise prescriptions for their clients or anything else they may need. I can also take on private clients in more of a personal training setting building programs to meet each specific client’s fitness goals. Similarly, I could work solely in a gym as a personal trainer. Finally, one of my favourite ways to work as a kinesiologist is on the sidelines of sports practices and games, giving me a chance to complete acute injury rehab and help athletes the way I was helped when I was an athlete.
Now that we have the basics out of the way, I figured I would describe a typical kinesiology assessment and session with me!
Each assessment will start out with some basic questions surrounding your reason for coming in, what goals you have, if you know what a kinesiology session consists of, and gaining some background on any activities you currently or previously had participated in. If you are coming in due to an injury we will do some joint specific tests and functional movements to help build an exercise program, and finally at the end of the assessment I will prescribe some exercises to start working on. Any follow up sessions will consist of exercise programming to help you reach your goals.
Hopefully by now you have a better understanding of what a kinesiologist does and what a session would look like! But if you’re still confused and wondering if it would benefit you, just book an appointment and come in and see for yourself!