Jukka Kangas

After 28 years in the field, Jukka Kangas, founder and head physiotherapist of Helsingin Fysioterapiaklinikka, is one of the leading experts in physiotherapy.

Kangas also works internationally as part of elite athlete coaching teams, as a manual therapy teacher and as an ITC coach.

Helsingin Fysioterapiaklinikka is focused on the rehabilitation and resolution of musculoskeletal problems.

-Most musculoskeletal pain conditions and disorders are solvable. At the heart of our work is that we don't just treat the symptom, we seek to identify the mechanisms behind them. Changing the mechanisms that maintain symptoms often requires a comprehensive approach.

Kangas says that the solutions are logical and can be found through interaction.

-It is often difficult for people to understand what causes and maintains pain. This is because the nervous system is proactive and choices to avoid pain and avoid movement impairments often occur outside of awareness. Thus, movement patterns that initially protect from pain go unnoticed and become dominant. Paradoxically, the same movement patterns, if prolonged, can cause and maintain the symptom elsewhere in the body.

Kangas stresses that the keys to people's problems are often found in insights, where people become aware of something that has affected them for a long time. That is why listening to the person being rehabilitated is of paramount importance.

-I have learned the most by interacting with people. The cases where there were no ready-made solutions have been the most instructive and rewarding.

-In sports, the best results are achieved through the cooperation of the athlete, the coach and the physiotherapist. For the elite athlete, optimum trainability and its constant maintenance are a prerequisite for staying healthy and for progressive training. The coordination of trainability and training avoids unnecessary interruptions in training and allows the athlete to enjoy the progression that training brings.

Since the beginning of his career, Kangas has also worked with dancers, one of the most demanding professions from a body perspective.

-The ability of dancers and elite athletes to sense, observe and analyse body sensations and changes has taught us a lot about how small impairments in movement can cause strong protective nervous system reactions and lead to abnormal loading in the body. The same laws apply to all of us and are therefore applicable to anyone's rehabilitation.