What Happens in Your First Biokinetics Session in Cape Town

Biokineticist is one of the most searched health professions in South Africa, and a large share of those searches are some version of 'what is one'. It is a distinctly South African profession, registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, and the shortest honest description is this: exercise used as therapy.

What is a biokineticist?

A biokineticist uses structured, individualised exercise to improve physical function. That covers final-phase rehabilitation, the stretch between being medically cleared and actually being capable again, and the long-term management of chronic conditions where exercise is part of the treatment rather than general advice.

The defining feature is that the exercise itself is the intervention. It gets prescribed, dosed and progressed deliberately, in the way a medication would be, and adjusted based on how you respond.

How is a biokineticist different from a personal trainer?

Good trainers do valuable work and this is not a swipe at them. The difference is scope and context. A biokineticist is a registered healthcare professional working within a clinical scope, usually alongside your doctor, surgeon or physiotherapist, and routinely dealing with people whose bodies have a complication attached: a reconstructed knee, a chronic condition, a long history of a problem recurring. Where a programme has to account for pathology, that is the distinction that matters.

What happens in your first biokinetics session

Expect to move, and dress accordingly. The first appointment is mostly assessment, and it generally runs like this:

• A proper history: what happened, what you have been told, what you have tried, and what you want to get back to.

• Relevant measurements, which depend entirely on why you are there.

• A movement and functional assessment, watching how you actually move rather than only testing isolated muscles.

• Testing of strength, endurance, balance or control where it is relevant to your goal.

• An explanation of what I found and what it means in plain language.

• A programme you leave with, that you understand and can actually do.

If you leave a first session without knowing what we found and what you are doing this week, something has gone wrong.

Who is it for?

• People coming out of injury or surgery who are cleared to load but not yet back to normal.

• People managing a chronic condition where exercise is part of the treatment plan.

• Older adults working on strength and balance.

• Youth athletes who need to develop properly rather than simply train harder.

• Anyone returning to exercise after a long break who would rather not get injured doing it.

• People who have been told to 'just exercise' and have no idea where to start.

What it is not

It is not a passive treatment, a massage, or a shortcut. Nobody does the work for you, and the results come from doing the programme between sessions rather than from the sessions themselves. If that sounds like a sales pitch in reverse, it is only because the alternative, promising progress without effort, would not be true.

Common questions

Do I need a referral?

Often not, and you can usually book directly. Some medical aids require a referral before they will pay from certain benefits, so it is worth a call to your scheme before your first appointment.

Will it hurt?

It should not be painful. Muscle soreness a day or two afterwards is normal and expected, especially early on. Sharp pain during an exercise is not, and it means stop and tell me so we can change it.

How often will I need to come?

Commonly weekly or every second week early on, with home work in between, spacing out as you become more independent. The aim is for you to need me less, not more.

Book with Tayla

If you are between being cleared and being capable, or you have been told exercise is part of your treatment and want someone to build it properly, book a first session with Tayla Shipp at Peak Movement in central Cape Town.