3 E Strategy – Part 1: Connect Over Positive Experiences

Our summer has been interesting, and mostly fun. We took off from Atlanta in our RV and camped with our two Brittanys through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes, through Iowa and Wisconsin, and then into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

We hiked, biked and kayaked through a lot of unfamiliar territory and had countless great experiences along the way. Some standouts were the Sculpture Fields in Chattanooga, Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, the Butterfly House in Chesterfield, and the Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior.

We balanced waterfalls and wineries with working from the road. In fact, I was presenting a Zoom class for NWHSU students live from a picturesque vineyard in Michigan when we got a call that a pipe burst at home and water had traveled far and wide… not quite the last days of the trip we’d imagined, but we packed up and headed home.

Nonetheless, it’s been a great summer filled with memorable experiences.

Post Covid – Positive Practice Reset

Now Fall is coming. As Covid hysteria fades we’re moving to the next “new normal”. To lend a hand in navigating these changes, I’ll be sharing ideas and tools to help you build your posture practice.

Why focus on building a posture practice? Because it solves a lot of practice problems while creating positive patient experiences.

Building Value with the “3 E Strategy”

The idea is to help you produce best outcomes for patients… and encounters they’ll remember. Over the next couple of articles, I’ll explain a three-prong approach, the “3 E Strategy”.

Experience   |   Educate   |   Empower

The Experience

Exercise should take effort if it’s going to make a difference. Taking this a step further, posture rehab exercise should be done precisely and with control if the patient is to see progress. This takes effort, but that doesn’t mean a rehab exercise session should leave a patient feeling stressed, confused, or overwhelmed.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

The StrongPosture® Exercise program directs, and protects, the patient experience because of these core elements:

• MUST vs TRY Cueing provides the patient clear, step-by-step instruction for each rehab exercise. The practitioner uses the same method to observe subtleties and determine how a patient can most successfully perform each exercise.
• Perception to Reality (P2R) is your framework to observe the patients’ functional edges and focus awareness to disconnects between perceived movement, and objective reality (P2R). This sets the stage for a patient to reinforce that pattern at home, and later demonstrate success on their next visit.
• Progressions and Peelbacks give you the logic to modify rehab exercises and meet the individual’s needs and ability level. Athletic to sedentary, teen to geriatric, you tailor exercises to what an individual can truly do well.

“Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Vince Lombardi

• Positive Communication is a fundamental part of teaching the StrongPosture program and sets the stage for a positive mind-body experience. From the beginning stage of the posture assessment, to teaching the posture exercises, to maintaining gains with ACE and ADL, our baked-in communications inspire hope, confidence and ultimately pride as patients achieve goal after goal.

Level Up

Give some thought this week to your rehab program. How does “The Experience” measure up in your practice? What experiential changes can you make immediately to get people excited and engaged with their own success? What needs to change to deliver stunning results?

“I’ve been a PT for over 4 years and never found a true system that works. The CPEP program is amazing, it allows me to treat the type of patient that I dreaded because I didn’t know how to treat them to help them get better. I have had some stunning results in the first 5 weeks of starting my own business that is strictly a posture practice, so thank you for sharing your program!” Olivia Huffman, DPT, PT

Do you need guidance in creating positive experiences in your rehab program?

• Are you hands-on, providing a boutique experience? DO THIS –> Join our network of CPEP Certified Posture Specialists.
• Too busy to teach? DO THIS –> Subscribe to 7 Steps to StrongPosture, plug-n-play rehab for busy practices This online video-based program will guide patients through their rehab, one step at a time.

Training Alert: Our next live Zoom team training is Sept 22 at 1PM EDT.
Shifting Spirals of Pain, Perception and Behavior