Walk through the doors of Rehab 2 Perform in Leesburg, and you'll notice something different. Instead of a typical medical environment, you’ll find a space that more closely resembles a training facility, with kettlebells, squat racks, and an atmosphere that emphasizes the company’s central philosophy: movement is medicine.
Dr. Grant Westbrook, the site director of Rehab 2 Perform’s Leesburg clinic and a performance physical therapist, recognized the limitations of conventional physical therapy from his own experience as a multi-sport athlete at Leesburg’s Heritage High School and football player at James Madison University. “I always felt there was a gap between rehab and truly returning to performance,” explained Dr. Westbrook. “My goal is to help patients reclaim their full potential, not just return to baseline.
“The atmosphere itself does do a great deal to help people understand that the goal is to be active, and the goal is to find ways to exercise, as we do view exercise as medicine. And the more we can help you move, the more we believe we are going to be able to help you in your long-term goals of health and wellness rather than just getting back to a certain level of baseline function.”
Rehab 2 Perform offers the standard treatment tables, but a lot of their therapy happens on foot, and the general atmosphere of the clinic promotes activity.
“Individuals who want to be more active and want to break the cycle of being in pain and constantly being limited really do respond well to that atmosphere when they walk in, whether that be a Medicare patient who is recovering from a knee replacement and wants to get back to doing that activity they love or whether that be the high school athlete who just had an ACL tear and feel like they are the farthest point away from getting back to playing soccer,” Dr. Westbrook said.
Rehab 2 Perform’s client base is highly diverse: professional athletes recovering from injuries, weekend warriors addressing sports-related challenges, new mothers rebuilding core strength, seniors maintaining mobility, and individuals managing chronic pain or recovering from surgeries.
“What I think differentiates us, as well, is what we can do for people who are more physically active and want to remain physically active, people who may not be as physically limited but understand that they do have aches and pains that are restricting them and want to have a more active approach to recovery,” Dr. Westbrook said.
All of Rehab 2 Perform’s patients, Dr. Westbrook says, benefit from a personalized approach geared toward optimizing performance and providing long-term strategies to maintain performance without regression.
“We do a lot for individuals to optimize their performance, educate them on how they can remain pain-free, and provide them with programming and mobility routines that can help them ensure they don’t have a regression in their status or can break through that glass ceiling to further optimize their performance,” he said.
The Mental Factor
The clinic also places significant emphasis on the mental element of rehabilitation, which Dr. Westbrook calls “one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle” of rehabilitation.
“One of the tremendous things you see with the mental side of rehab is when someone realizes that there aren’t as many barriers between them and their chosen activity as they previously believed,” he said. “Often the barriers they experienced were certainly physical and real, but sometimes they can be self-imposed.
“We help you manage that and work around that. Finding things that work for them is going to be far more important than just going off a sheet of paper that says, ‘Okay, you have shoulder pain, so you should be doing X, Y and Z.’”
To foster patients’ confidence and mental resilience, Rehab 2 Perform’s performance therapists create a progressive, supportive environment where patients can safely challenge themselves.
“You're going to be doing things that may be challenging, but you’re going to be doing things that are phase-appropriate in an environment where it is safe to fail,” Dr. Westbrook explained. “I’m going to provide you an environment where you’re able to push yourself and do things that are challenging, but you’re not going to be in a scenario where you’re at risk for injury. Everything is going to be appropriate for what you can currently handle.
"Through that progressive approach of doing things that are challenging and overcoming them, and seeing yourself be successful, those small wins turn into big wins as an individual starts to see that.”
Tracking Progress Objectively
Rehab 2 Perform also uses objective testing technologies to highlight both deficits and progress, instead of relying solely on timelines or generic recovery protocols.
“That’s something our company does extremely well,” Dr. Westbrook said. “We find great value in objective testing. There’s timeline-based rehab and then there’s criteria-based rehab. A timeline can be great; individuals can have a surgery and go through a timeline of like three months and then the surgeon will say, ‘Hey, you’re good to run.’ But that can be a daunting thing for some people, because they don’t really feel ready. The objective nature of our testing means we’re able to explicitly find impairments to highlight to that individual: ‘You can do this on this limb, but when you go to the other side, you can only do this.’ That highlights to them the deficits they currently have and then it allows us to track that objectively throughout the rehab process, so that we can highlight to them the progress they’re making.
“Admittedly, the work is going to come from the patient,” Dr. Westbrook added. “And the more you highlight those relevant impairments and how they’re related to their physical task or goal, you’re really empowering people to take a more active approach and do those things that are going to help them get better and get back to what they ultimately want to do.”
Educating for Long-Term Performance
Unlike clinics that provide temporary relief, Rehab 2 Perform is committed to patient education. So patients don’t just receive treatment; they receive a comprehensive toolkit for ongoing wellness.
“I like to highlight that when you leave this clinic you should have a very good understanding of what you can do to manage pain when it does arise,” Dr. Westbrook said. “You’ll have a good understanding of maybe why it arose, and we’re going to build out different tools in your tool bag to manage pain, get stronger, or get more physically active. When you leave rehab with us, you’ll have a mobility routine, a strength routine, and you should have ideas for what you need to progress in the future. Education is at the forefront of everything we do, because that’s what's going to allow that patient to continue performing well after they leave our four walls.”
Learn more about Rehab 2 Perform and its innovative approach at rehab2perform.com.
Rehab 2 Perform helps patients return to—or even exceed—their previous level of physical function. Its facility has the standard treatment tables but feels much like a gym. Clients include athletes, new moms, seniors, and more.
"The goal is to find ways to exercise, as we do view exercise as medicine," says Rehab 2 Perform performance physical therapist Dr. Grant Westbrook.
"When you leave rehab with us, you’ll have a mobility routine, a strength routine, and you should have ideas for what you need to progress in the future."