Kieser Physio and Strength Training

From time to time, I suffer with a problem with my pelvis, which when it flares up leaves me in some serious pain, said flare ups can be caused by anything, the last one was something as normal as getting out of bed.

Anyhow, normally I go see the chiropractor who can "crack" it back into place with a single visit. Good yes, but does nothing to help with the flare ups, which as I move from old to ancient are getting more and more painful.

So, time for something to help moving forward in the longer term, and hopefully reduce the flare ups and keep the pain level to something manageable, without the need for serious drugs.

Now, talking to a work colleague who had been seeing a physio and reporting nothing but good things, I asked for the details.

After some googling, this physio turned out to be more a combination of gym and general physio, which initially put me off even trying them.

To me a gym is a place with lots of mirrors, loud music and treadmills, in other words nothing I want anything to do with. These guys Kieser have none of this, which even with my misgivings meant they were worth a go.

This page is the tale of my ongoing journey with them

After making the appointment to see the physio, my first visit was interesting, and even made me feel more confident about the choice to try things.

The physio was just like the others I have seen over the years, professional and knowledgeable, with one major difference, he emphasised that "Kieser" was not a quick fix. This is something no other physio has ever told me, they usually promise everything.

The way Kieser works is something very new to me, they have the usual physio services, but is backed up with training sessions which are tailored to build up the mussels in specific areas using their interesting looking machines.

Now these machines may look like machines of torture but believe it or not they are very carefully designed to target specific muscle groups.

And that’s from the better part of a year of using them, each has diagrams showing which muscles should be worked, which all match my experience.

One odd thing worth noting is the weights are in pounds and not kilos. Strange yes, but not even close to a deal breaker.

My first thought when seeing these is they look complex and I will need help to use them, which brings me onto the phone app.

Yes, there is a phone app, which not only tracks the use of these machines, but also has all the settings you need, based on the program the physio has worked out.

With this being the first time, I have done this sort of thing, I am not sure if other places have this sort of thing, but based on using the Kieser app, they should if they currently don’t.

Anyhow, my journey started early 2022, when after some physio treatment, I was strapped into a special computerised "torture" machine which measured my back strength, the result was better than expected, putting me in the 7th percentile, whereas I expected something around the 3rd or 4th.

Not good, and much work needed to improve this, and my general strength in general.

Initially I went with two physio sessions per week, followed by, some supervised time on the machines to tune the strength building program the physio came up with.

It took a while, just as explained when I started, but I started to see quite the improvement with my back issue, and after lots of work, another session on the same computerised machine showed the improvement where I went from the 7th percentile to the 70th.

This improvement which did seem to creep up on me, was most welcome, and not only was my back much better, but I generally felt better.

At this point, most people would just declare victory and stop going, however as part of the initial sessions, I was shown (via diagrams) how the strength building works and needs more work to be maintained.

My initial thoughts on this where along the lines of "they want more money".

At this point, the improvements where such that I wanted to continue and see where things would end up, so it was time to decide the way forward

Kieser has all sorts of membership types, some supervised and others run using the phone app.

For me, and to save some money, I went for two sessions per week, one supervised and one self-managed with the app.

This supervision is not from the physio, but with one of the "Exercise scientists", and yes this caused my "BS" detector to wake up, however in this case it was a false positive and they are not the usual "Personal Trainer" but are university educated "Bachelor of Exercise Science" holders, with an impressive level of knowledge.

So far, I have seen several of these scientists, and each seem to have the same high level of knowledge, although do have different ways of supervising these workout sessions.

These days I usually see the same one, who really pushes me to work harder without letting me to overdo things, tweaks the program I am working though, usually by adding weight, and doing the interesting 5 second holds while working on the machines.

Why I went for the single supervised session per week was to make sure I was using the machines the way I should, and to generally guide me to avoid injury.

These sessions usually run for around half an hour, although in my case, some go longer especially for the self-supervised ones.

As for me, I am continuing with the strength building program, and have even added a third weekly session to see how far I can go.

When it comes to the costs, it’s not cheap, but from personal experience the physio costs are comparable to the others I have seen over the years.

With the training sessions I have no frame of reference, so cannot really comment beyond saying its within my budget and the results are in my opinion worth the costs.