Rick’s Services

All of my services below boil down to one primary purpose–I help people fix their pain and improve their performance.

Assessing the Pelvis in a Functional Position

Physical Therapy

  • Chronic pain evaluations + treatments
  • Injury evaluations + treatments
  • On-Site Visits for individuals, groups, or companies
  • Long Distance / “Virtual” Sessions
  • Personal Ergonomic Consulting
  • Custom Orthotics

Personal Training

Pilates Instruction + Training

Services for Athletes

  • Injury assessments
  • Performance Recommendations
  • Customized Strengthening Programs
  • Biomechanical Assessments
  • Sports-Specific Personal Training
  • Sports Orthotics

Corporate Services

(all services can be performed on site)

  • Employee injury/chronic pain treatment
  • Injury prevention consulting
  • Corporate wellness consulting

    Rick's Neck Pain Clinic at VPPPA National Conference

  • Ergonomic evaluations
  • Exercise/stretching program design

Speaking Engagements

If you’re…

Before coming in…

  • Please email me a history of your issues prior to seeing me so we can get right to work when you arrive. The more detail, the better.

What you can expect from me on your first visit…

  • a detailed one-hour evaluation of your muscles, bones, and movement habits at the roots of your pain.
  • a clear explanation of why you have pain. In order for you to fix your pain, you must understand why you are in pain.
  • a plan and exercises to get you out of pain. You will understand the importance of each exercise or movement modification on your road to recovery.
  • less pain.

Further sessions (30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on need)…

  • We’ll perform further testing if needed.
  • I’ll help you correct the issues we’ve identified.
  • We will isolate and correct pain-causing compensations you may have when performing your exercises.
  • We will discover how to adapt pain-reducing strategies to your exercise program, work, or play.

Other Questions

May I bring someone with me? Please do! We will be covering a lot of information and two heads are better than one.

Should I come in when I’m in pain? Yes! That’s why you’re coming to see me. If you wait until the pain is gone, it makes both of our jobs more difficult.

What should I bring? If we are working on your neck and shoulder area, men can expect to take their shirt off and women, please wear a sports bra or bikini top if you are uncomfortable with wearing just a bra.

If we are working on your low back, hips, knees, or feet please wear a pair of shorts.

What will I leave with after our first visit? You will leave with a nearly complete understanding of your pain. You will feel somewhat overwhelmed by all I have to explain to you. If I give you any exercises, you will have copies to take home. Other notes you need will be written down for you to review and follow.

Should I expect things to hurt? No! You should feel better!

When we correct function, pain diminishes almost immediately. Having said that, on occasion people do feel more pain, usually after they begin doing their exercises. If this happens it is because they are performing a new exercise with their old movement patterns–which the exercises are designed to break. In that case we have to look more closely at how to get you out of your habits without triggering them. If this happens, we usually figure out the nuances on the second visit.

What will happen to my pain? People never believe me when I say this but your pain should diminish or be substantially better after our first, second, or third treatment. I always shoot for the first treatment and rarely does it take three. The largest determining factor really comes down to how diligent you are with your exercises and changing your movement habits. After all, I’m not fixing you, you are.

Will my pain relief be temporary? No. Because you are fixing your pain, it means that you are fixing the roots of it. This is why I insist on you taking control of your rehab. We are partners working toward a common goal. I can’t do it without you.

What are your treatments/solutions like? From what I’ve heard, my treatments are unlike any that most people have had. I do not use modalities such as ultrasound, electrical stimulation, traction machines, hot or cold packs, or other types of equipment. Although I am certified in dry needling, I use this modality only in certain situations. This is because your pain was not caused due to the absence of these things and your pain will not be cured by them either. Your pain is due to functional problems in muscular, skeletal, and movement systems. Fixing these systems is how you will heal yourself.

Will I get bodywork–how will I be “treated”? People love to have bodywork done to them. There’s nothing quite like it. Unfortunately I do very little of it unless I feel it’s absolutely necessary. Instead, we will work together to correct the issues I’ve found causing your pain. You will know they are the right issues because I will show you, during our examination, exactly how each element is contributing to your pain.

Will I have to return regularly? I hope not!

Typically you will come in once each week, perhaps twice for the first week or two depending on the number of issues we need to address. I like to give people time to work on their homework.

Do you just give me stretches to do? If appropriate, I will give you stretches or strengthening exercises to correct specific issues. Be assured that I will definitely give you homework in the form of monitoring and changing pain-producing habits though.

Ultimately the goal of these exercises is to improve your function and eliminate your pain. Once your function is improved, you won’t need to continue doing exercises because you’ll be moving in a way that strengthens and stretches just what you need. Your daily habits will now feed your body rather than break it down.

Will I have to buy expensive equipment or sign up for classes? No equipment. No classes. No gimmicks of any kind. Just commit yourself to fixing your issues and you’ll be fine.

How does payment work? Unfortunately I do not take insurance.

However, before you make your decision to move on, consider this…

  • I do not use assistants or aides–100% of our time is spent with me focussing on the issues creating your pain.
  • I do not use modalities such as ultrasound, electrical stimulation, hot or cold packs which consume valuable time we can be using to understand and fix the root causes of your pain.
  • I determine my success as a clinician by how few visits you need to see me rather than by the number of visits I can get you to come in. There are no contracts with me.
  • Most people only need to see me for 1-4 appointments to have all their answers and feel much better. This will depend on you.
  • I charge $50/30 minutes –no matter what I’m asked to do.
  • Our first appointment will be an hour ($100) to completely evaluate your issues, teach you what they are and why they are happening, and then begin a program to fix them.
  • Each successive appointment is 30-60 minutes depending on what needs to happen to get you better.
  • My very affordable one-hour clinics for groups are $300 and are powerful teaching tools for groups of people.