After working in cybersecurity for many years and then as a part-time Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Kevin Rebman wanted to continue to help people, but in a different way. Today, he’s a board-certified therapist in massage and bodywork, and the founder and owner of Return to Play Institute.
“I got started in this about 10 years ago,” he says. “I graduated from Northwestern Health Sciences University here in Bloomington and came out with a AAS degree in clinical massage. What I really wanted to do was make a destination for people who had issues with their muscles.”
Whether the pain is caused by trauma, surgery, cancer, sports, or even pregnancy, Kevin and his team of board-certified therapists work with clients using evidence-based clinical manual soft tissue therapy to help them get back to living their best lives.
“We do oncology and perinatal massage, and help with postsurgical recovery with manual lymphatic drainage and scar tissue therapy. We're also doing things like neuromuscular therapy, or NMT. We're not here to teach stretches. We don't do chiropractic adjustments. We're not doing acupuncture or physical therapy. We focus on working on the soft tissues.”
Instead of masking pain with medication, Kevin and his team help heal the tissue causing the pain, especially after surgery. “We actually love to be able to help clients out in a natural way,” he says. “Your body is healing all the time, and it's doing it passively behind the scenes, but if you put some activity into it, if you actually treat healing like an active process, you'll recover better and you'll have a better result at the end.”
Every treatment is tailored to each client’s needs. He and his team spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what hurts where, then developing a plan to reduce or eliminate that pain. At each subsequent appointment, patients will be asked for a status update to determine whether the treatment is working or needs adjusting.
The main goal by the end of the treatment period, which varies depending on the severity of the issue, is for clients to get back to doing what they love, and the feedback they receive from them is extremely positive. Something they hear all the time is “I wish I had known about you for my last surgery.”
“We're passionate about what we do,” says Kevin. “Unfortunately, in Minnesota, along with four other states in the USA, massage therapy is not a licensed healthcare profession. Many therapists out there receive training, if they get training at all, and then never take another class afterwards. That’s a problem because I don't want people to go to a place where they're not going to get the best quality care.”
At Return to Play Institute, with locations in Edina and St. Paul, therapists are nationally board-certified and must complete continuing education courses each year to stay licensed. “We want to stay current in everything that's going on with healthcare,” he says.
In order to reach and help even more people, Kevin wrote “Recover Smarter: The Ultimate Guide to Healing After Surgery.” Published in June of 2025, it's available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on his author's website, MethodandMythMedia.com.
“This book is all about what a person needs to know from a couple of weeks before surgery until about eight to 12 weeks after, with respect to how to heal better,” he says. “It covers things like the psychological effects of surgery. For example, some people get depressed. Others want to recover immediately, and when they can't, they get mad. It covers what to expect each week with scar tissue development and what scars should look like. It talks about compression and exercise. It includes nutrition. All of the things that people might want to know, that they might want to ask their doctors, but their doctors don’t seem to have time to answer those questions.”
It’s filled, he says, with a lot of helpful common-sense information, although none of it is meant to replace a doctor's advice or give medical advice.
“My favorite part of our business, whether it's me or one of our other therapists treating a client, is that we love to see people get better,” says Kevin. “That's what it's all about and what really makes our day.”
To make an appointment and get help with your pain or discomfort, call or text 763-270-9330, or go to ReturnToPlayInstitute.com.