What is Physical Therapy?
What is Physical Therapy?
It’s a simple question—but honestly, most people don’t have a great answer for it.
Over the past several years of practicing, I’ve realized that even people who have gone through physical therapy don’t fully understand what it is or what it can do. And that’s not on them. As a profession, we haven’t done the best job educating people on what physical therapy actually offers.
The most common answers I hear are things like, “rehab after surgery” or “help you recover from an injury.” Those aren’t wrong—but they’re incomplete. Physical therapy is much broader than that.
At its core, physical therapy is about improving how your body moves, functions, and performs. That can mean recovering from an injury, but it can also mean preventing one, reducing pain, improving mobility, or simply keeping your body operating at a high level.
There’s also a wide range within the profession itself. Physical therapists practice in areas like pediatrics, neurology, cardiopulmonary, women’s health, vestibular rehab, sports medicine, and orthopedics. And even within those categories, every therapist has a different background, training, and treatment approach.
What do I treat at Modern Movement Physical Therapy?
I’m a Board Certified Orthopedic Specialist, which means I focus on the musculoskeletal system—joints, muscles, tendons, and the spine.
Yes, I work with people who are injured or post-operative. But the majority of the people I see are dealing with more everyday issues—aches, pains, stiffness, and limitations that come from being active, working, training, or just life in general.
A lot of my clients don’t come in because something “went wrong.” They come in because something doesn’t feel right.
That might be:
Low back or neck pain
Shoulder or knee issues
Tendon-related pain
Mobility restrictions
Muscle imbalances
I also have a number of clients who come in regularly for maintenance or injury prevention. They train hard, stay active, and want to keep their bodies feeling and performing well.
What does physical therapy look like with me?
Every client starts with an Initial Evaluation. This is where I take the time to really understand what’s going on—your history, symptoms, goals, and what you’re trying to get back to.
From there, I perform a thorough assessment to identify what’s actually driving the issue. Not just where it hurts, but why.
Once we have that, I walk you through what I’m seeing and what the plan looks like moving forward.
Treatment is never one-dimensional. I use a combination of evidence-based techniques depending on what you need. That can include manual therapy, dry needling, spinal manipulation, soft tissue work, mobility exercises, and strength training.
Research in The Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) consistently supports this kind of multi-modal approach—combining hands-on treatment with active exercise tends to produce better outcomes than relying on one alone.
The goal is always the same: reduce pain, improve movement, and make sure the issue doesn’t keep coming back.
At the end of the day, physical therapy isn’t just about rehab—it’s about optimizing how your body functions so you can keep doing what you enjoy.
Take good care of your body, it’s the only one you have.
Yours in health,
Dr. Michael Price