Apollo Performance Therapy

Apollo Performance Therapy Helping people frustrated by recurring pain and injury get back to feeling strong and athletic.

Check out our website for location information, services, and booking an appointment!

04/25/2026

All injuries are brain injuries
...kinda.

After any injury (especially after a surgery), our reaction time slows down.

It's partly a defense mechanism. To protect the area, your brain turns down the ability to fire muscles hard and fast.

Any delay in a muscle firing means more reliance on connective tissues for support.

We need to be training our brain take in information from our eyes, ears, feet, and balance systems and make quick decisions.

This drill is training agility with a focus on processing speed.

Take the information and react as fast as possible.

There are 2 colors and arrows that can point in any of 4 directions (up, down, either side).

Red = go opposite direction that the arrow is pointing.

Green = go same direction that the arrow is pointing.

If you start to get good at it.....we switch 😉 (sometimes every set).

Rehab is more than stretching and "strengthening."

The body and brain are an amazing, adaptable machine that is adjusting to every single bit of info that you give it.

Are you trying to rehab an injury or are you going to the spa?It's very clear what we do when you walk into our clinic.I...
04/23/2026

Are you trying to rehab an injury or are you going to the spa?

It's very clear what we do when you walk into our clinic.

It looks like a gym.

We want you to see us working with other clients and wonder...."is that physio or training?"

The answer is....yes.

Because they are the same.

If you did physio after an injury or surgery and didn't really do much in terms of exercise....then you didn't really rehab anything.

You went to the spa to feel better.

Those are not the same thing.

If you want to be active, play rec sports, trust your body to take on any cool opportunity that comes up....then that involves training that feels like training.

Yes, you have to do cardio.

Yes, you have to lift heavy things (and just so everybody knows....that 20-lb dumbbell sitting in the corner of your house is NOT heavy).

Yes, you have to jump and run.

Because if your rehab doesn't challenge you MORE than the things you are trying to do.....you aren't done with rehab yet.

04/22/2026

Neither time nor pain tell you when you are ready to go back to your sports safely.

Just because you rested for 8 weeks and you no longer have pain in your daily life, does not mean you are now capable of handling the demands of a sport that involves running, cutting, jumping, and landing.

It's taken me 8 weeks to get to point where my hamstring strength in my WEAKEST and MOST BOTHERSOME position is on par with my non-injured side.

I did not allow myself to go back to football until I saw those numbers be the same, no matter how good it felt doing anything.

And it's a good thing I did.

I played this past weekend for the first time since the injury, and I still felt like I was moving at around 80% speed most of the time, and by halftime my leg was TORCHED.

Achey, tight, felt very weak.

Started to run slower and slower, go easier and easier on routes and on defense, until I got easily beat deep for a touchdown, and took myself out for most of the game after that.

But....next day had no pain, tightness was gone. Just some muscle soreness you'd expect from playing a sport for the first time in a few weeks.

So now we work on capacity for high speed movements. I'm more interested in being able to play effectively for an entire game at 80-90% before I'm worried about getting back to 100%+ top speed.

My biggest issues have been accelerating, decelerating, and change of direction. So my "rehab" is going to focus on building tolerance to doing those things.

Goal: get to the same level of fatigue I felt during the game, rest, repeat.

Almost back to 100%, let's get it.

04/21/2026

These are the buckets that need to get filled when looking from a 10,000 foot view.

We are working on all of these to some degree, all of the time, but this is looking at where we’re spending the majority of our time.

The other thing I did not mention this video is the fact that skill is being worked on constantly. Every phase has a layer of coordination, timing, mobility, and technique that is associated with it.

These things are usually a low hanging fruit for many people that can speed up your ability to get back to your activities without an issue.

04/17/2026

The jump rarely causes the problem. It’s usually the landing.

And it’s not about landing in a “perfect” position.

Injuries happen when there is more force or strain on a tissue than it is capable of handling, so the tissue gets damaged.

Your landing position needs to be good enough to spread those forces across more tissues to avoid one singular area taking on too much.

Sometimes that means being able to stack your joints properly and landing in a visually “good” position with your legs lined up (whatever that means).

Sometimes that means being able to tuck and roll to spread that force across even MORE tissues.

Sometimes s**t happens and it doesn’t matter what you do, something has to give.

The best we can do is prepare our body by getting it comfortable under heavy loads and by learning how to manage our body moving fast in various ways.

This is why we all need to be lifting weights, jumping, and running for as long as possible.

04/16/2026

Our heel is off the ground for a lot of the things that we do athletically.

But on the ground for everything we do in the gym.

Then we wonder why we get tight, sore, or injured.

Train your calves just like any other major muscle group.

Heavy weight that involuntarily slows down by the end of the set.

Moderate weight to near muscular failure.

Push as hard as you can into immovable objects.

Hold positions for as long as you can.

“See those numbers there? Yeah…..that means you suck.” Just kidding, I didn’t say that (probably).But really, testing an...
04/09/2026

“See those numbers there? Yeah…..that means you suck.”

Just kidding, I didn’t say that (probably).

But really, testing and tracking data matters.

It can show you that you are improving, even if pain isn’t (yet).

It can show you where you are ACTUALLY limited, weak, or struggling compared to what you THINK is limited.

Most people going to physio don’t get any testing or objective data.

We see a lot of runners dealing with pain and I can count on one hand how many of them have told me that the practitioners they have seen in the past even watched them run at any point.

That’s wild to me.

Like we should probably look at the thing that is causing them pain, and our objective testing should correlate with what see when they are running.

————————————————————

We love data over here. We try to track at least 2 things objectively with every client.

For our in-person clients and Rebuild members that looks like using Force Plates, bar speed, strength testing, among may other things to track progress and make sure things are changing that we are trying to change.

For our online clients it’s AMRAP sets on the regular to see if you were actually working at the intensity you thought you were. It’s monitoring weights and reps week to week, and comparing that to technique videos to check progress over time.

Because if the weight/reps go up, but your technique changed from one week the next, you didn’t really get stronger. You just changed the exercise.

Data and testing is what determines if you are ready to move to the next phase of rehab, when you go back to running, when you are allowed to go back to practice again.

Data. Not time. Not pain. Not your coach. Not your boss. Not your surgeon.

Opinions are cool, show me the data. Prove you are ready.

04/07/2026

Got back pain when you hinge?

You need to create space SOMEWHERE on the back side of your body as you hinge.

Ideally, it’s the back of your hip and thigh (aka glutes and hammies).

But your brain is just a task engine, and you just think “hips back and bend over”, your brain will try to do it in the easiest way possible.

Most of time, the fix isn’t in a ton of mobility work or magical exercises, it’s just thinking about the exercises differently.

Here’s how I like to coach a kickstand hinge (aka a single leg deadlift with balance help from the back foot) step by step:

1. Hands on hips, stand fully on one leg with soft knee and hip to find your balance over the middle of your foot.

2. Touch back toes lightly to ground to help with balance, but keep weight over the middle of your working foot.

3. Keep a LOOOOOOONNNNGGGGG spine from top of head to sit bones, and tip your pelvis forward, again keeping weight balanced over the middle of your foot.

4. Sit bones should lift up to face the wall behind you, spine should maintain its starting shape.

5. Motion is over when your pelvis stops tipping forward (aka your hands stop moving). This is also when you will feel a stretch somewhere in back side of your hip/leg if you were successful.

Feeling a stretch means a muscle is at end range, stop at that point, you don’t need to go further. You can’t load that muscle more. It’s done.

6. Push through floor to come back up. Knee should not change position. Foot pressure should not change. Hip should come forward to again be balanced over top of your foot, rather than your spine lifting you up just to be upright.

Now go practice, and load when possible, forever.

Happy Easter, everyone! Hope you all have/had a kick-ass long weekend.Now let's put this weather on repeat for the rest ...
04/05/2026

Happy Easter, everyone!

Hope you all have/had a kick-ass long weekend.

Now let's put this weather on repeat for the rest of the year, thanks ☀️😎

04/04/2026

Got a tight neck or upper back?

I'll commonly see these people having difficulty creating space at their upper back.

This is a simple exercise to work on that.

Some main principles going on here that are important when trying to improve mobility:

1. Don't fight tension with tension. If something feels tight, squeezing something else really hard just makes you have TWO tight things.

Hence the long relaxed breaths once you are in position. If you can't do that.....you are squeezing too much. Relax.

2. How you are thinking about the exercise matters. Your brain is a task engine. If you make the goal "push as hard into the wall as possible", you will do lots of things to make that happen, none of them are going to be useful to the goal of REDUCING tension and being able to create space.

Just focus on elbow and back of wrists heavy on the wall, and try to push through them equally as you get your ribcage to move away from the wall.

3. We have the most options/mobility when we are stacked at our ribcage and pelvis. It gives us more space to move in ALL directions. It often is the best starting point for movement, not one we need to maintain constantly.

What's nice is that this drill can progress nicely into a lot of other things.

This position we are going for here is also what I normally am coaching for somebody trying to get into front rack with a barbell, or when they are initiating an overhead press, etc.

Give it a shot and see how it goes!

04/03/2026

Don't be scared of a hip hike.

This is a common thing that I will see in people that have been dealing with low back, SIJ, or even knee pain for a long period of time.

They have been taught over and over again that they need core/hip stability and to be able to maintain a level pelvis all the time.

Trying to keep your pelvis level all the time is silly. It's not how we move.

A hip hike is NORMAL, and is actually part of how we load our leg effectively.

It actually HELPS us access our glute and use if more effectively. So don't be scared of it.

Stop trying to avoid it.

"But I thought a hip hike was bad!"

When can a hip hike be "bad"?

1. When we can't get out of it. Ideally we have access to ranges on both sides.

That means we should be able to hike and drop our hip on BOTH sides. Not just one.

Same goes for anterior/posterior tilt of your pelvis, lower back flexion/extension, etc.

2. When it is happening MORE than it should because of a lack of motion somewhere else.

If you can't internally rotate your hip, you'll likely hike your pelvis up even higher in order to accomplish accessing a "similar" position of your leg.

The issue is that this doesn't usually load the same area/muscles as it would if you actually accessed some hip IR.

So, a hip hike can definitely be playing a part of your symptoms, but it's most likely not the CAUSE of your symptoms, if you catch what I'm throwing.

My most common cue around the pelvis and hips when we are trying to move more comfortably?

F'n relax, dude. Stop trying to be a robot and control everything. Let it happen.

03/31/2026

We're chipping away at this thing still.

No pain at all anymore.

But still hesitant around doing anything max effort, which tells me it's not ready yet.

Currently working on top end strength with a focus on controlled lowers into the stretched position.

Continuing to challenge speed in any way I can and not feel like I'm going to set myself back at all.

Speed is what injured it, and getting comfortable with speed is what will get it back.

Daily running drills and varied isos are keeping it feeling good while I continue to rebuild.

Address

1410 Quadra Street
Victoria, BC
V8W 2L1

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Monday 7am - 7pm
Tuesday 7am - 7pm
Wednesday 7am - 7pm
Thursday 7am - 7pm
Friday 7am - 7pm
Saturday 9am - 12pm

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+17784014460

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