ACE Audio

In today’s episode we explore some commonly presenting ankle and foot related presentations, how to identify them, some suggestions for management, and some tips on avoiding them in the first place. Enjoy!

So many of the stories we’ve been told about what manual therapy does, have been proven to be wrong, yet many of these beliefs still exist in the minds of practitioners and patients. In this episode Shaun and Bo explore what WAS the commonly held beliefs about how massage, manipulation and other forms of manual therapy work. They also unpack the newer and evidence informed mechanisms that the scie...

This may very well be one of the most common traps, and important to recognise problems in the work we do clinically. Tunnel vision will lead us to look for answers to the wrong questions. Such as, “how do I treat XYZ problem”? When really, we need to ask better questions, like “what are the predisposing factors for XYZ problem?”, and “how are the related tissues affected by XYZ problem?”. When we...

Pain, Suffering and Self-Mastery with Dave Miller is a must listen to conversation where two different health disciplines come together to discuss the complex but amazing psychology and physiology that can either amplify or diminish the human pain experience. In this episode Shaun talks to Dave Miller, a Personal Trainer, endurance athlete, avid fan of stoic philosophy and secret pain science nerd...

Dosage! It is something not often emphasised in manual therapy training, but something that is absolutely crucial to effective clinical outcomes. What do we mean by dosage…? We mean the amount of time you would spend applying a treatment modality, the intensity and the regularity. Getting this right is challenging, as it requires the clinician to consider multiple factors relating to the patient,...

We have all experienced it and it frustrates us all… When a patient doesn’t take your advice, doesn’t follow your instructions, doesn’t do the exercises you gave them or doesn’t modify their activity as directed. PATIENT COMPLIANCE is the topic of today’s discussion. In this episode Shaun and Bo give you a stack of tips and ideas that you can implement into your clinical practice to ensure your pa...

In this episode Shaun and Bo reflect on a recent experience that Shaun had during a recent consultation as a patient. Here they discuss the importance of listening to the patient’s story, getting to understand their concerns and building rapport.  The results we achieve for our patients begin with this crucial first step and it is far more valuable than many may realise. Listen in to how it can go...

Tune in as we explore the answers to the most commonly asked questions about dry needling. These questions are regularly asked by the health practitioners that we train in dry needling. The questions are valid and the answers are important, so we thought we would record an episode on the topic! To be the best clinician, you have to understand your tools completely, and our goal is to help you do t...

Leadership is such a critical skill for us to develop. We may not all end up being a leader in business, but we will be leaders for our patients, leaders for our children, leaders in our social groups and leaders in many other facets of our lives. The skills and mindset required of great leaders are not something we are born with, so we have to work at it. In this episode Shaun explores some of th...

Posture is often used by clinicians to make all sorts of claims regarding sources of dysfunction or sources of pain. But does it really matter as much as we were taught? Perhaps a better question is does it matter at all? This episode is likely to challenge a lot of beliefs and force listeners to question the way in which they use observational assessment to drive decision making in the clinical s...

After having read about this concept some time ago, I realised it holds so much truth and is something we should all recognise as we work towards building our businesses or our careers. You can be Fast, you can be Cheap or you can be Good. What you can’t be is more than one of these things at a time. Our job is to figure our which one we want to be and why. This choice will influence or even dicta...

Now don’t get us wrong, delivering manual therapy as a passive treatment for your patient is still a valuable thing, but if your goal is to solve a longer term problem for them or work towards improving their health or resilience, then there needs to be another dimension to what you do. In this episode, Shaun and Bo explore the many and varied benefits of taking your treatment from passive to acti...

 We’ve all seen these things before, but who of us is guilty of them?  Dry Needling is an incredibly powerful modality, but often it is used improperly, ineffectively or even dangerously.  This episode is all about what NOT to do when it comes to using Dry Needling in your clinical practice.  Tune in to find out how to avoid making some simple mistakes and you’ll be shocked when you hear about som...

In this episode Shaun and Bo interview Dr Tino D’Angelo about his thoughts on the division between Acupuncture and Dry Needling.  For a long time now, there has been in some circles, some resistance by Acupuncturists to accept and recognise Dry Needling as a valid and different modality, separate to the TCM approach to needling painful points on the body.  Likewise, there is often misunderstanding...

Do you work for yourself / by yourself, or do you work with a group of other practitioners in a multi-practitioner clinic? There are advantages for both scenarios, but solo practitioner has the potential to miss out on some important experiences and opportunities unless they create them for themselves. In this episode Shaun and Bo explore the potential pitfalls of working along and how to avoid th...

Taking a "long game" view in business is what will not only make your more successful, but will help you achieve even more satisfaction. In this episode Bodine interviews Shaun about his long game approach to starting and building businesses. Several stories and examples are given to help listeners apply this lessons to their own businesses or careers. We practice what we preach at ACE,...

Listen in today as Shaun and Bodine talk about hip and pelvic pain, and the common mistakes that therapists make when assessing and treating it. The hip and pelvis can be a complex and confounding area of the body to manage, and it is easy at times to fall into the traps created by assumptions or by misunderstanding the presentations. Today, Bo walks us through some tips to help you provide a more...

Today we flip things around as Shaun Brewster is interviewed by Jackie Tann from the Bodies Build Better Podcast. Jackie asks loads of questions about how manual therapy does what it does. We discuss cupping, dry needling, massage, recovery, injuries and more. If you are a manual therapy nerd, you are going to love this one. Check out Jackie's podcast here  

In this episode the boys dig into such a critical component of every effective consultation. The process of conducting a thorough patient history and subjective assessment is far more valuable than it often gets credit for. Physical and objective assessment regularly takes the focus in a patient consultation, but we can actually gather far more information and often more valuable information from...

In this episode we introduce one of the newest members of the ACE team, Isabella Glebicka.  Izzy is in charge of our Marketing and Communications department and also brings with her a Masters in Psychology and a deep interest in consumer behaviour. Listen in as she shares her thoughts and ideas on marketing for your clinical practice. Enjoy!

Today we flipped the format a little and Bodine interviewed Shaun about his experience as both a competitive runner and a running coach, from the perspective of running related injuries. It is a sport that is enjoyed (or perhaps non enjoyed...) by millions of people around the world, and one that produces an incredibly high incidence of injury. Understanding what your running clients can do to red...

Overservicing patients is an important topic for so many reasons... In this episode Shaun and Bo explore the various reasons why therapists AND patients fall into this trap, and discuss why it is a major problem for the patient but also from a legal and ethics perspective for the therapist. Treatment packages, paying in advance, scheduling multiple appointments at once and chasing rebooking rates...

Today's chat is a bit of a reality check. It's far too easy for us all to make excuses for the gaps in our knowledge or skill. In today's world there are zero excuses for not being able to access the information we need, and we owe it to our patients to ensure we show up ready to help them with whatever they require. Shaun & Bo will walk you through ways in which you can fill th...

"Almost everything that walks through your clinic door is a result of a tissue capacity problem". In this episode Shaun and Bo dive into the Issues with our Tissues :-) The ability for our various tissues (muscle, tendon, ligament, bone, fascia) to withstand stress is ultimately the reason for so many of the pain presentations and dysfunctions that we face in clinical practice. This disc...

In this episode Shaun and Bo explore some common misrepresentations of manual therapy in the treatment of myofascial tissue, what mechanisms are ACTUALLY at play, and how we are effective at reducing pain and improving function. Recorded on the road in transit to an airport drop-off... these guys never miss a chance to nerd out on the stuff that makes them tick.