Andrew Hume, MSc

08/26/2025

Kinesiotherapy classes have some openings

- Tuesday 5:30: 1 vacancy
- Ongoing - runs until Dec 9th

- Thursday 12:30: 1 vacancy
- Ongoing - runs until Dec 11th

- Friday 8:45am: 1 vacancy
- Ongoing - runs until Dec 12th

Kinesiotherapy is a functional movement based, adult only, small class (11 people max) offered at reactive health in Stratford.

It focuses on teaching proper body mechanics, improving general mobility and essential aspects of balance and coordination, building overall body strength and resilience to injury, with an additional high priority on soft-tissue pain management strategies. It is a healthy, manageable combination of general fitness and rehabilitation based content.

Kinesiotherapy has evolved from my multiple years of experience as a clinician - it is designed to help you improve and maintain the quality and control of your physical life as you age. That is my primary overarching goal for this class.

Please message me here on FB or via email at andrew.w.hume@gmail.com if you are interested and I will give you more information.

Thank you,

Andrew

10/12/2022

Another round of registration is open for fall programs!

These classes are great for Islanders who have a chronic disease and want to make improvements to their health through safe, effective exercise/movement. The programs are 6 weeks long and offered virtually (using Zoom). There are modifications for all levels and abilities.

Please visit https://www.beckexercisephysiology.ca/exercise-for-health-program-1 and complete the form.

Please help share the word with friends and family who may be interested and benefit from movement that works for them.

04/21/2022

I absolutely love this video! There is no denying the plethora of scientific data supporting the immense benefit of true strength training for the health, longevity, and quality of life of older adults. It has to be programmed properly, don't forget that...and I am very happy to see places like this sprouting up and showing some real-world anecdotal evidence of it's effectiveness.

People say the stupidest things about strength training after fifty. Sully takes down 10 of the Stupidest! Don't let mythology keep you from getting strong a...

04/15/2022

I've worked with people suffering from persistent pain for over 10 years now. During my numerous conversations, observations, and interventions with such folks I have found the information in this video to be very accurate. I want people to understand I do realize that sometimes people's issues with pain do not fit this description (e.g. people needing joint replacements, surgery to correct a significant nerve impingement or large scale rotator cuff tear, etc)...but, my point here is that more often than not I believe that they do.

Please use the info in this brief video to help you start thinking about persistent pain differently, for yourself or maybe a loved one. The pain that you feel is very real, pain always is...but long term pain more often than not does not mean that something is horribly wrong with your body. A lot of times, it is that your nervous system has become VERY sensitive to stimuli that otherwise would be benign. This may happen in one particular area, or even several. Have a listen...

Pain scientists starting to think differently about persistent (chronic) pain and its causes, are they're making exciting discoveries - like how you think ab...

02/28/2022

Done 3x/week, on the regular...it just works

Myofascial Release lengthens your body’s muscles and connective tissue to relieve pain common in soft tissue disorders. Fascia is a thin white layer of tissu...

10/17/2021

Kinesiologists have been helping people improve their quality of life for decades, but public education on who we are and what we do is still lacking. Kinesiologists can work with a wide variety of health conditions, in a variety of settings - but there are 2 primary areas of positive change needed to help this 'movement' be most effective for both the practitioners and the general public: improved coverage for kinesiology services by your private insurance company (blue cross, sunlife, Manulife, etc.) and more health and wellness locations around the country that employ kinesiologists to work independently. Please take a second to share this message, and please consider contacting your insurance company to simply request coverage for kinesiology services. Thank you 🙂

08/15/2021

RESEARCH CORNER - A very large (over 6400 people from 29 countries) study shows that a decline in adult metabolism doesn't actually occur until about age 60. This means that the gradual weight gain that typically starts happening to most of us at around age 30...it can't be blamed on a 'slowed metabolism' as we often say. So what can we 'blame' it on? The research study did not attempt to directly answer this question - but my opinion would be a simple increase in caloric intake as the main factor (with less overall activity as another variable). Generally speaking...we eat too much food folks, and much of it is not as healthy as it should be. My own personal experience with weight loss has definitely illuminated the fact that even when we think we are not eating much in the run of a day, we typically are still taking in too many calories.

For instance, I currently need about 3000 calories to maintain my weight, when I was in the process of losing weight I measured a lot of my food for accurate caloric counting - so that I knew for sure I was consistently staying about 500 calories below my maintenance calories, literally everyday - and it worked. What I found quite interesting was that a typical meal could EASILY be close to 1000 calories (or more), an unhealthy evening snack (e.g. chips) could pack on several hundred calories without breaking a sweat, and going for your money's worth when eating out...well you don't even want to know the result of that one. I'm not a dietitian, I'm a kinesiologist, so while I am not trying to tell people how to lose weight - I am attempting to illustrate just how easy it is to take in more energy than we expend. Keep in mind that many people, especially women, usually need much less than 3000 calories per day to maintain body weight -- making it all that much easier to over-consume when you choose to eat in the 'average' Canadian way.

Metabolic rate remains stable all through adult life, from age 20 to 60 years old.

07/18/2021

EXERCISE THERAPY - A simple but excellent hip, back, and shoulder stretch.

As the arrows indicate, while holding on to something sturdy simply let the hips move back as far as possible without bending the knees too much and at the same time slowly push your chest down to the floor without bending your elbows. An added tip here is to push your lower back into a posterior tilt (tailbone tucked down/flat low back position) to force your mid-upper spine into extension. Also, holding something more anchored than a chair would work best, such as the edge of the kitchen sink. You can either hold a continuous stretch as you breathe deeply or repeat up and down for reps dropping down into it as you exhale slowly. I like to do both - a handful of reps then hold for about 30 seconds.
If done as described, this exercise mobilizes the glutes and hamstrings, and puts a healthy amount of therapeutic traction on the spine and shoulder complex. If you drop down into this position and it causes some shoulder pain, then you may have some undiagnosed impingement at that joint or other shoulder pathology. Time to see your physiotherapist if that's you.

06/09/2021

EXERCISE THERAPY - Internal and external rotator cuff circuit. A basic, but still excellent part of a preventative program for long-term rotator cuff and overall shoulder region health.

06/08/2021

Wellness Education -

- If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous.

Bret Contreras, PhD,

04/25/2021

RESEARCH CORNER - disregard the ads and fluff, this article has excellent evidence-based guidelines for intermediate to advanced resistance training. For those of you looking to just add some basic weight lifting to your overall wellness routine, this amount of volume is completely unnecessary - you would do well with full body workouts 1-3 sets/body region 2-3x/week with about 48-72 hr rest between sessions, working in the 8-15 repetition range. However, for those that choose to prioritize strength training with the intention of maximizing muscle hypertrophy (growth), this is sound advice to work with. Keep in mind that adding a significant amount of lean muscle tissue to your body is one of the most successful preventative approaches you can take (along with improved cardiopulmonary function) to preserving physical capacity as we age...it's definitely not just for 'muscle heads'💪, it's for everyone. The more that 'regular' folks participate in activities like weight lifting, the more it will be viewed as a healthy, 'normal' thing to do by generations to come.

If you want to learn what research says is the optimal number of sets to do per workout to build muscle, then you need to read this article.

04/24/2021

This image is relative to so many aspects of health and just life in general: quitting drinking or smoking - changing your diet - being a better husband, wife, parent - making regular exercise a part of your new lifestyle - going back to school...the list goes on and on.
I found it interesting to analyze myself and realize where I was on the chart as it
applies to different aspects of my life. For some key areas, I'm right at the top - while some are more in the middle. I always choose to believe that change is possible, but it was interesting to try and uncover why I was so successful with some but only partly there with others. I hope this helps you take a look as well.