We had the good fortune of connecting with Amanda Anderson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, is there something you can share with us that those outside of the industry might not be aware of?
I can’t tell you the number of times that I tell someone I’m a physical therapist and they ask me to give them a massage. There is a whole branch of wellness dedicated to massage therapy, yet people still assume that’s all I do! I promise if I’m doing any sort of soft tissue work, it will not be relaxing.

Physical therapy is a wide umbrella of things and does have quite a bit of overlap with chiropractics and exercise physiology, including personal training, but to sum it up, we are trained movement specialists. We pick up details that many people would not notice. We also are trained to safety assist people with return to movement, exercise, and/or sport after an injury or surgery based on healing timeframes of different tissues. We are also trained to recognize and refer for a variety of medical issues or problems outside of our scope of practice. These skills are combined together is what makes physical therapy its own branch of health and wellness.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I started my business called Raise the Barbell Physical Therapy + Performance at the end of 2021. Right now, it’s more of a concierge-based rehabilitation service, but I am hoping to be affiliated with a gym by the end of this year.

Honestly, I started Raise the Barbell because I was tired of knowing what my patients needed but not being able to give it to them in a busy outpatient sports-med clinic. Sometimes that issue is based on time and not having enough of it when you’re seeing multiple people at once and sometimes it was limited by insurance and really high co-pays.

With my own business, I can be a cash-based only practice. I am not limited by insurance, whose guidelines are sometimes not reasonable for the injuries or surgeries that patients are having, I also will only ever see one person at a time, and I can see patients for an hour for treatments with evaluations being up to 75 minutes.

Ultimately, it is better for both me as the physical therapist and you as the client. Because I can spend more time with you initially, I can get to the root of the problem faster so you don’t need as many total physical therapy sessions to get back to what you love to do.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love Dallas and I would be thrilled if any one of my friends came to stay with me for a whole week! There is so much to do and see…and eat and drink and eat.

Day 1: Trolley ride from West Village with a stop off at Klyde Warren Park to eat at the food trucks and perhaps get a Mambo Taxi from Mi Cocina and a donut from The Salty Donut.

Day 2: Walk around Historic West End with a little stop over across I35 to go to the Perot Science Museum and the Aquarium.

Day 3: Time to see the steer drive in the Stockyards and go to the Fort Worth Zoo, Can’t go to Fort Worth without a trip to Joe T. Garcia’s for a sangria…

Day 4: Brunch at OddFellows, more donuts from The Salty Donut, and a smoothie snack from Tribal Cafe with a day of browsing and shopping Bishop Arts. Love Denovo Active, Urban Owl, and Zsa Zsa’s Unique Boutique.

Day 5: Coffee at Fiction Coffee and a trip to Boulangerie in the morning with a quick workout at The Gym of Social Mechanics on Lower Greenville. Lunch at Hg Sply and drinks at Hide. And then maybe some Botolino Gelato before heading out to some of the bars in Deep Ellum – Dots, Stirr, and Truth and Alibi with a stop at Le Bon Temps Beignets (please be open late!).

Day 6: A trip to SummerMoon coffee in North Dallas and then back to the Dallas Farmer’s Market (we’ll assume today is Saturday!). Then a trip to NorthPark Mall .

Day 7: More coffee at Sip Stir Dallas with a trip to Kittenish, Kenra Scott, Nickel and Suede, y&i clothing boutique, and M.K.T. Perhaps lunch at Grimaldi’s or Baboush.

Honestly, can they just stay for another week?

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
It’s not really a person, but more of an experience that helped me actually. I was a sophomore in college running on a Division III cross country team with tibial stress syndrome, which essentially means really terrible shin splints. I started going to physical therapy for my injury and fell in love with the open nature and friendly environment and decided to change my path from med school to PT school almost halfway through college.

Website: amanda-anderson.clientsecure.me

Instagram: @raisethebarbellpt

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-anderson-pt-dpt-ms-43718495/

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