In all of my years of teaching and writing I’ve never shared my journey because I feel it can be perceived a self promoting, which is never my intention. But I’ve decided to share some of it with you today. This is a journey that is far from complete but one that I felt has accumulated enough academic training, research review, practical experience and business acumen to finally put together a curriculum based on what we do best.

What I am going to share with you is not to try to impress you but to impress UPON you that you too can have a profound effect on people’s lives; not just within your zip code but around the world. Furthermore, you don’t have to work at “market value” putting in 70 hour work weeks often with people that don’t ever want to change.

As I write this, I have had clients come to see me from 15 different countries and 33 states. Just last week I had a pilot/surfer fly from Puerto Rico to work with me at Function First. This week I’ll see a university Dean coming in from Los Angles and I’ll have a Skype follow up with a retired attorney in Jackson Hole, WY who saw me in San Diego two weeks ago.

Because of the mental and emotional commitment I invest in every appointment with my chronic pain clients I never see more than 20 appointments per week. The earliest I see my first client is 9:00 a.m. and the last appointment I take is at 5:00 p.m. If I work on the weekends it is to teach (workshops, conferences, consulting)-no clients. My schedule is my own. I see my kids off to school in the morning and have dinner with them at night.

Please believe me when I say that I am a life-long learner and I’m humbled by the complexity of the human body and psyche daily; and without doubt there are scores of people much smarter than me. My success rate with clients is not perfect and I would be a delusional ego-maniac if I claimed I could help everyone at any time. However, when you bring together everything that we do with a client we have very often been successful where others smarter than me have not; and that is because it is not just about knowing anatomy and biomechanics. It is what we deliver in programming and how we deliver it to meet the physical, psychological and emotional needs of each client.

Many of my clients thought they had tried everything. Clients who have come to me after visiting the world renowned Mayo and Cleveland clinics described their visit as a “last resort”. Others who have been under the care of the best medical doctors, treated by multiple physical therapists and chiropractors were to find the results they hoped for only after coming to Function First. We delivered by meeting the client where they were and walking them down a path of progress that no one us had shown them.

The clients who seek me out today are not who I thought I would be working with after completing my undergraduate degree in exercise physiology back in 1989. The personal training industry was in its infancy. My emphasis was in corporate fitness and my first job out of school was with Campbell Soup Company in Camden, New Jersey-one of the earlier pioneers in worksite wellness.

California was calling and after a year I left New Jersey to begin my graduate studies at San Diego State University. Along with my course work I completed 1800 clinical hours in the athletic training room and graduated with a Master’s degree in biomechanics and athletic training. Yet I never sat for the NATA exam for athletic trainers because to me it was most about triage and short term rehab. This is a necessary but unfortunate consequence of most athletic training environments. Instead, I was after big picture and long term solutions.

My first job out of graduate school was at Pete Egoscue’s clinic in Del Mar. The Egoscue Method was my first real introduction to looking at the human body globally and functionally. This was also my first real introduction to the chronic pain population.

Having recently completed my own research project for my Master’s thesis, my co-workers considered me a research “snob”. But I used that critical thinking during my 3 years with Egoscue to become his Director of Education and grow his training platform. I owe a debt to Pete Egoscue because he did change the way I viewed the body.

In 1994, a couple of other Egoscue disciples and I started Function First. This month marks the 20th anniversary of Function First and I am the only founder still with the company. Needless to say a great deal has changed in those twenty years. The way I work with a client today and the way I worked with clients then has evolved tremendously. We are always learning and trying to improve.

That is why I am ready to share my passion and dedication to what we do with you so that you can take it and make it your own. So that practitioners like you can take the tools in our curriculum and empower people to better their lives the way we do. The launch of this curriculum was no quick information product thrown together for a profit. This was two years in the making with no intentions of being released until it represented the quality and thoroughness of everything that we do at Function First.

You think helping someone lose weight is fulfilling? Try on a hug from a client who just a week before would have given up her entire limb to amputation if she thought it would have stopped the nerve pain she suffered with for the past 8 months.

The recent release of our Pain-Free Movement Specialist has generated a lot of interest and attention from those familiar with my work and others in the fitness, rehab and medical fields. We are grateful for all of you who have already started to benefit from my 25 years of experience.

Let’s face it; we knew that we were making a bold statement when we named our curriculum the Pain-Free Movement Specialist. But we knew that what we are offering is so much more than just corrective exercises. Therefore, it did not make sense to limit the scope of interventions for the client we wanted to serve.

Although I’ve taught principles we use for more than 17 years to trainers, physical therapists, chiropractors and medical doctors from around the world-it was always in a way for them to fit it into their paradigm.

As we prepared this curriculum, we asked ourselves a very important question: “What is it that Function First does so well that individuals would travel from all parts of the world to seek out our services?” When my Director of Education Kevin Murray and I answered that question; we realized that the only way to make this curriculum authentic is to fully expose to you everything that creates our success.

We are proud of the fact that we have created something very special and unique because it is 100% based on exercise and self-care. You owe it to yourself and the hundreds of clients whose lives you could personally change with the skills you will gain moving from Level 1 all the way through Mastery Academy Level 4.

The wave of those in need is already upon us. 1.5 BILLON people globally are in chronic pain. Movement is life and they don’t know where to turn to learn how to move better and improve their function in a way that is not damaging or threatening to them. Let us help you help them get their lives back.

Your opportunity is now. Establish yourself as an expert and build a business and lifestyle that you’ve always wanted with a curriculum based solely around working with the person in pain. The PFMS curriculum is your opportunity to serve this population that is desperately searching for a pain-free solution. Position yourself as the expert to meet their needs.

We look forward to partnering with you on this journey.

Sincerely,

Anthony B. Carey M.A., CSCS, AHFS
CEO Function First
2011, 2012 & 2014 San Diego’s “Best of” Health and Fitness Club
2010/2011 San Diego’s “Best Of” Personal Trainers/Studio
2009 Personal Fitness Professional Magazine Personal Trainer of the Year
Author of The Pain-Free Program: A Proven Method to Relieve Back, Neck, Shoulder and Joint Pain
Inventor of the Core-Tex™

P.S. We’ve broken up the Level 1 curriculum into Parts A and B allowing you to split into two payments and making it easier on you.

By Kevin Murray CPT, CES, PES
Director of Education

“Almost every significant breakthrough is first a break with old tradition, with old ways of thinking, and old paradigms”. Thomas Kuhn, physicist, historian, and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions originally introduced the term paradigm shift. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People further elaborated on this concept. Paradigm shifts guide us to new ways of thinking, shedding light on new ideas and concepts previously unseen. They are “Aha!” moments, when you suddenly view everything from an entirely different perspective, ultimately shifting your paradigm.

The Function First Approach is constantly evolving. A new era of growth, contribution and change awaits the movement industry, and we embrace this opportunity as industry innovators and educators. The Function First Approach is a principle-based outlook on movement and function. Principles are nature’s laws that forever endure and cannot be broken. Principles are fundamental truths that have universal relevance. If your parents or grandparents ever wonder why they’ve lost an inch or two, they need to look no further than the physics principle of gravity. Although we cannot see it, gravity is always there. It’s a universal principle.

One of the fundamental principles that guide the Function First Approach is simply this: the body is an interdependent unit that always functions as a whole. And just as the body is interdependent, the Function First Approach operates much the same way. It’s not a methodology, but rather a principle-oriented, systematic approach, utilizing various perspectives to help guide the implementation of a corrective strategy. One such perspective contributing to our approach of viewing the body as a whole is that of Thomas Myers and his 2001 groundbreaking book Anatomy Trains®.

I’ve had the privilege of working side by side with Tom over the last several years, and in 2012 was appointed one of his Associate Teachers for Anatomy Trains®. While traditionally, manual and movement professions have been viewed as independent of one another, the movement industry over the last decade or so has grasped onto many of the principles and insights of manual-based philosophy and teachings. Surrounded by such brilliant minds and immersed into the “manual world,” so to speak, I quickly discovered that, while the process behind manual and movement applications are indeed drastically different, our objectives, outcomes and ultimate vision are almost always identical.

The anatomy-based knowledge of manual professionals is astonishing, and Tom’s is particularly so. In the same respect, Tom is often taken aback in his journey of movement comprehension. His own paradigms shift as he understands more about movement and function. Tom has taken a keen interest in our approach to Corrective Exercise, movement and function, which is why Anthony and I are thrilled to be collaborating with him in his hometown of Walpole, ME this July for three full days of advanced insights and movement strategies for creating lasting change. Combining the Function First and Anatomy Trains expertise into one event creates something far greater than we could ever accomplish separately. Together, we create an interdependent paradigm, completely revolutionizing how we approach working with clients, patients or athletes, while simultaneously bridging the gap between manual and movement industries.

We understand that one of the most effective strategies for expanding your knowledge and growing your skill set is to surround yourself with like-minded individuals at live events. There is no substitute for immersing yourself into new ways of thinking, to step into the unknown and leave with a new sense of what’s possible for you and others.

2014 is an exciting time for us at Function First. We are celebrating 20 years since we first opened our doors. As we reflect on this accomplishment, we also look to the future and to our pledge to continuously raise the bar to even greater heights. Our revolutionary unlimited personal training package, X-Factor small group training, reactive training with the Core-Tex™, collaboration with Thomas Myers & Anatomy Trains, and the soon-to-be-launched online curriculum based entirely around the Function First Approach to Corrective Exercise are just some of the projects that are keeping us busy.

Have you ever wanted to help someone in pain, but weren’t quite sure how? Function First is among the world leaders in Corrective Exercise intelligence. Since 1994, Anthony has been on the cutting edge of Corrective Exercise innovation and intellect, educating thousands of professionals at conferences, workshops, seminars and mentorships how to create Pain-Free living through corrective exercises. What if you could begin your personal journey of Corrective Exercise Mastery with Anthony and me anytime, anywhere, and at your own convenience? On May 1st, the Function First online curriculum will be accessible worldwide and available to anyone looking to geometrically grow his or her Corrective Exercise comprehension and application.

The Function First online curriculum and Corrective Exercise Mastery is the culmination of all that Anthony has learned and assimilated in over 20 years of working with the chronic pain population. It’s designed to share all the principles, strategies and tools that make the Function First Approach so effective and powerful by taking advantage of the most current research in pain neuroscience, biomechanics, motor control and all that encompasses the bio-psycho-social model to overcoming pain.

If you’re ready to become a master of helping people overcome pain through exercise, are committed to raising your standards of excellence, and are dedicated to acquiring the expertise to create lasting change in your clients, patients and athletes, then here is our invitation to you. Join us on this journey: an interdependent, centered approach with the ability to transform lives.

This powerful exercise from The Pain-Free Program: A Proven Method to Relieve Back, Neck, Shoulder and Joint Pain is a much different way of doing the familiar bridging exercise.