UPPER QUARTER INTEGRATION OF THERAPEUTIC EXERCISE & MANUAL THERAPY
APril 26, 2026
Course Description
This class is exclusively devoted to therapeutic exercise In the upper quarter emphasizing trunk and hip control. It is intended to assist the clinician in maintaining their primary focus on enabling patient independence from the medical system including the need for PT.
The stratification of patients can be effectively summarized as those requiring intervention, rehabilitation, management or prophylaxis. The recent trend to evidence-based practice has brought along with it an unintentional and inappropriate bias toward the intervention phase. Exercise has too many variables to be investigated in easily controlled studies. Every patient needs to be able to control their own body weight and motion.
Class will be biased toward the rehabilitation, management, and prophylaxis while demonstrating how exercise can be integrated with manual therapy techniques to become a therapeutic intervention early in care.
The exercise concepts will require physical therapist knowledge of anatomy, pathology, chronology and attainable patient goals through the application of genuinely therapeutic exercise.
Basic principles of facilitation will be used to direct treatment to the patient's genuine functional needs. There will be an integration of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation and resistance during the flow of manual therapy. Early initiation of self treatment exercise will lead to progression towards realistic home exercise without sophisticated equipment.
Structure
This class is willfully designed to be efficient with your time as well as effective with developing, improving or mastering your skill set. The content will be completed in one day. All enrollees will receive the didactic portion of the class before the actual class day allowing time for absorption before the live interface. This will ideally liberate the class to spend class time in a genuine “hands on” refinement of skills to be assimilated into their present matrix.
Research has demonstrated that the highest quality learning takes place in 4-6 hours of focused work spaced in 45-50 minute blocks followed by review and breaks of 5 -15 minutes. Our schedules will reflect this and not be deceptive marathons that lead to mental fatigue & inefficiency. Classes will be 8:00 -3:00 with a lite lunch on site.
Goal
The ultimate goal is to lead the patient to effective therapeutic exercise, long-term management, education, and discharge. This is a clinician’s class— Real PT.
Those who wish to may apply course credit toward advancement to Certification in orthopedic manual therapy (COMT) . Please see the website ( phoenixmanualtherapy.com ) for details.
Taking both the Upper & Lower Therapeutic Exercise classes in the same weekend on back/back days is encouraged but not required.
Course Objectives
1. Develop a conceptual framework for active exercise.
2. Integrate the basic concepts of exercise into manual therapy techniques.
3. Discuss the genuinely common clinical syndromes, the rapid recognition of them and the applicable progression to exercise as treatment.
4. Integration of the principles for spinal mobilization on a continuum through to manipulation and active exercise.
5. Develop proficiency with the common clinical syndromes and progression of treatment from passive to active for the purposes of developing patient independence.
6. Understand the application of principles for therapeutic exercise from repeated movements for centralization, augmenting manual intervention, to development of trunk control and prophylaxis.
7. Nurture continued development of skills with accurate and informative feedback from the ‘patient’ therapists with each session. Understand the experiential nature of motor skills.
8. An emphasis on the application of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation to the orthopedic patient.
CEUs: 1 day course; 10 Hours
Instructors: Fearon, Ruiz, Tabczka
Registration: To sign up for this class, please email phoenixmanualtherapy@gmail.com
Information:
Jenna Tabaczka PT, DPT EMAIL: PHOENIXMANUALTHERAPY@GMAIL.COM OR PHONE: (602) 997-7844
Former Femoral fracture patient post rehab!