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BUSINESS JOURNAL.
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Published April 2004
Sports
training,
physical therapy
under one roof
By
Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor
On a recent Friday afternoon, Lance Miller put two teen-age track athletes through their pre-season paces.
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Everett Physical Therapy & Sports Performance Center Address: 2000 Hewitt Ave., Suite 115, Everett, WA 98201 Phone: 425-252-3908 |
The teens, one an Everett High School junior, the other a Post Middle School eighth-grader, hopped in and out of the rungs of an agility ladder to work their foot speed. Then it was on to the starting blocks, where each of the boys received tips for improving their form from Miller, a physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist.
But they weren’t on a track or some grassy school field; they were in downtown Everett at the Everett Physical Therapy & Sports Performance Center, which opened in February in the Everett Events Center.
An affiliate of Everett-based Integrated Rehabilitation Group, the Sports Performance Center is “unique” to what IRG has done historically — developing and operating outpatient physical therapy clinics — but M. Shannon O’Kelley, president of IRG, said it has been a dream of his to move into the “sports side” of his industry.
Three things recently happened to make that dream a reality:
- In early spring 2003, IRG became the official physical therapy provider and team trainer for the Everett Silvertips hockey team.
- A few months later, Miller joined IRG as clinic manager of its Everett Physical Therapy location, bringing a decade of experience in youth athletics and sports medicine.
- Soon after, the IRG team decided the Everett clinic, then located at 1100 Pacific Ave., needed room to grow.
It was then that O’Kelley learned there would be space to lease at the Everett Events Center, and on Feb. 16 the clinic moved into 3,600 square feet of space and a new address: 2000 Hewitt Ave., Suite 115.
“From a business standpoint, it’s a great place to be, with the revitalization of downtown,” O’Kelley said.
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IRG
continues If M. Shannon O’Kelley has his way, Integrated Rehabilitation Group will be known as the “premier provider of outpatient physical therapy in Snohomish County, and, ultimately, the state of Washington.” In the past two years, the Everett-based operator of physical therapy clinics has been growing to meet that goal. In 2003, the company relocated its Silver Lake and Granite Falls clinics to larger spaces, opened a clinic in Snohomish and acquired Edmonds Hand Rehab. In February, IRG moved its Everett clinic to a larger space in the Everett Events Center and added specialized athletic training services in the renamed Everett Physical Therapy & Sports Performance Center. A month later, the company opened Mukilteo Physical Therapy, bringing its total number of clinics to 11 — with eight in Snohomish County and the other three in Olympia and Idaho — and its work force to more than 85 people, said O’Kelley, who founded the company in 1997. Such growth comes with hiring the right people and valuing clients, said O’Kelley. “I tell my staff, ‘Don’t focus on the numbers, focus on the patient care, and the numbers will come.’” |
From a training standpoint, the clinic’s new space includes room for the usual physical therapy fare: cardio equipment, cable-pulley weight machines, a bench press and squat rack.
But there also are two Hammer Strength Ground Base strength-training machines, which allow a person’s feet to remain on the ground while working out muscle groups using motions that are true to an athlete’s sport, whether it’s baseball, football or swimming.
“It allows for strengthening with good freedom of movement,” Miller said of the machines. “We can get them on their feet like they would be in their sport.”
The center also makes use of medicine balls and a slide machine, which enables a person to move their legs from side to side, much like the motion a hockey player might make on the ice. And Miller and his crew do use the device to test the readiness of injured Silvertips players to get back on the ice following a period of rehabilitation.
And then there’s the Astroturf, which covers at least a third of the center’s floor space and enables Miller to evaluate athletes more effectively while working on sports-specific training, like the track athletes and their starting blocks.
But athletes are not the only ones Miller and O’Kelley envision using the center, which also provides traditional physical therapy services, including post-surgical rehabilitation, neck and back therapy, geriatric care and the treatment of sports, work-related and motor-vehicle injuries.
The marketing campaign already is under way for the new center, with information going out to the health-care community, area coaches and parents, O’Kelley said. But it is word-of-mouth that will be key.
“The quality of service that we provide will drive us,” he said.
© 2004 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA
