How I Discovered Connect Therapy - Matt Barker

As some of you know we do things a little different here at Balance in Motion and whilst all of us
have different stories of how we walked through the doors I thought I’d share mine, especially
considering I started on the other side of the treatment plinth!

I have a long history of playing competitive sport and what usually comes with that is an injury or
two. One of the worst of these was an injury to my right hip which was diagnosed as a mixed
lesion along with a Labral tear and was at a time when I was studying to become a Physio. In
common tongue this meant that I had an extra bit of bone growing on my pelvis and on my thigh
bone where they met to create the hip joint and a tear in the lining of the hip joint as well.

It is a relatively common injury for kicking sports to have some form of bony growth in the area
all though I did manage to get one on both parts of the hip and then the tear on top of it. I was
uncomfortable most of the day with the injury and it was something that caused catching pain
with sitting to stand motions, a dull ache with sitting for longer than 10 minutes and playing
sports was horrible especially afterwards.

I sought help from a family friend who is a physio and a damn good one at that (shout out to
Loretta). We did everything we could for my hip and I checked in with her once a week for 6
months trying every strengthening exercise possible and under her incredible unrelenting care I
managed to get my hip into a place where I could at least decrease the symptoms in sitting and
in some everyday life movements. However the pain was still very up and down and I wanted to
return to sport, especially soccer.

Loretta attended a course and our next session she tried a different approach. I was a little
confused to say the least but happy to go along with it. She had a few findings and decided it
was best to see if someone with more experience in this new approach could help out, so I was
sent off to Balance In Motion to see a Nick Torrance.

I arrived at the clinic with little hope that I would get any relief or that this Nick person would find
anything else that could help me but with the long standing pain I was ready to try anything.

Nick was a nice enough guy and had good enough banter for a lanky Kiwi but I clearly
remember him looking around my rib cage with me thinking “mate you’re looking in the wrong
spot” but I was polite and kept my mouth shut. He treated my Thoracic rings and explained how
the thorax was a super important part of our body that isn’t assessed very well and how it has a
large area that has many muscular connections that can affect the body in heaps of different
ways.

I was still skeptical about it all but the results spoke for themselves. Over the next week my
symptoms had dropped dramatically and my hip was feeling freer than ever. Over the next
couple of weeks it continued to improve but the damage was done and the structural damage
was too much.

I ended up in the consultation room of Dr Michael O’Sullivan after an MRI and it was decided my
best route was surgery where he would shave the bone back and repair the tear whilst he was
in there. Although I was relieved to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I knew it would be a
long 6-9 month process that would take a lot of effort on my part but I managed it well with
support from everyone I had met along the way.

Over the next 2-3 years I completed my Masters of Physiotherapy, started a job but had a
massive desire to know the magic that Nick seemed to be able to work. I kept popping my head
into the clinic at every chance I had to learn more and watch Nick and Melita like a hawk in the
sessions. I looked at LJ Lee’s site every day to see when she would be returning to our shores
to teach and I enrolled in the sporting Thorax and pelvis as soon as they became available.
Eventually Nick gave in to my constant nagging (and Melita’s) and offered me a job at Connect
Therapy and I have never looked back.

I know my life would be very different without ConnectTherapy both personally and
professionally and I am stoked that I have been able to learn from some amazing people and
physios along the way.

If you’re looking for a more holistic approach, have a stubborn injury, feel that you could just
perform better or even just want to learn more about how we treat please get in touch, you won’t
regret it.