Functional Manual Therapy®

A Comprehensive System to Optimize Human Balance & Movement

The Functional Manual Therapy® (FMT) philosophy and structured system of patient care is founded on the recognition that all tissues of the body are intricately interconnected and that efficient balance and movement requires a dynamic interaction between the mechanical, neuromuscular and motor control systems.

Discover Your Potential® To Facilitate Your Patient’s Optimum Potential!

FMT is more than just clinical reasoning, it is a system of highly specialized and integrated skill sets of listening, palpation, visual observation, in-depth assessment, and the coordinated use of your body to apply interventions.

Change Your Mindset!

View your practice from the perspective of human body potential instead of an orthopedic, neurological, women’s health, or sports practice. Find the potential in every human being and become the go-to person in your community to unlock untapped potential. Help complex patients not effectively managed by the conventional medical and physical therapy community.

Functional Manual Therapy® is…

  1. Balances evidence and science with the art of individual application
  2. Correlates anatomy and kinesiology to local and global movement science
  3. Breaks free from normative values and promotes each individual’s optimal state of function
  4. Promotes pattern recognition, leading to clinical mastery
  1. Trains therapists to think and observe three dimensionally with interregional cause and effect.
  2. Exposes the global impact of segmental mechanical capacity on surrounding regions
  3. Promotes trunk and extremity coordinated movement and stability
  4. Treats the interdependency of all the body’s tissues to promote functional efficiency
  5. Utilizes full body positions and myofascial planes to create a “total body, three-dimensional” locking of a targeted mechanical impairment.
  1. Directly correlates impaired mechanical (M) capacity to the efficiency of neuromuscular function (N) and motor control (M). (MNM)
  2. Built on the premise that all patients, regardless of pathology, need to have all systems and tissues (joints, soft tissues, viscera, and neurovascular tissues) treated to restore functional efficiency.
  3. Promotes manual therapy for all patients (neurological, pelvic health, orthopedic, sports, etc.) because human movement depends on optimization of all three systems
  1. Mechanical assessment and treatment is end-feel directed, not dictated by angles of articular surfaces or arthrokinematics.
  2. Focuses on attaining full excursion accessory mobility through complex 3D movements. Traditional mobilization focuses on attaining neutrality of a body part in a resting position.
  3. Utilizes weight bearing positions to reveal and mobilize hypomobilities not always evident in non-weight bearing positions.
  4. Functional Mobilization™ incorporates patient active involvement, promoting changes in the homunculus and facilitating a more effective release.
  1. Utilizes PNF, building on the genetics of neuromuscular function
  2. Immediately integrates new mobility with neuromuscular and motor control training.
  3. Empowers the therapist to target local (tonic) versus global (phasic) muscle contractions with enhanced sensory, proprioceptive and manual therapy skills.
  4. Facilitates proper synergistic motor initiation and develops task specific strength and endurance
  5. Trains dynamic stability for controlled mobility in all functional activities and postures
  1. Facilitates optimal posture and movement based on individual presentation
  2. Incorporates principles of CoreFirst® strategies for dynamic stability and controlled mobility which genetically drive human growth and development
  3. Provides a structured system of training task performance, utilizing principles which ensure automatic core engagement (ACE)
  4. Assimilated Central Nervous System – effectively recognizing sensory input and activating effective motor output for any given automatic or volitional movement