PHYSICAL therapist and personal trainer Jair Lyons operates out of the Gymkhana gym in Kingston. This week he shares an insight into the career of the physical therapist/personal trainer.

1. Who is a physical therapist/personal trainer?

Firstly a physical therapist is a health care professional who uses a variety of techniques, called modalities, to restore function, improve mobility, relive pain and prevent or limit permanent physical disabilities in patients. For me I get confused with a personal trainer because I sometimes work out of the Gymkhana gym and heavily use exercise with my patients to facilitate the above.

2. What is the value of the work that you do?

It’s hard to place value on what I do because the work I do with people sometimes impacts them more deeply than I even realise at times. For example, after injury, people tend to lose a sense of self when they lose certain physical capabilities. What I do allow is people to gradually regain and rebuild the person that they were before injury, by rehabilitation of the injury.

3. What was it that prompted your entry into the field?

Watching my cousin who I now work with, work on patients and athletes, getting them back to function and in the game always amazed me. I realised early that I wanted to help people with limitations and impairments to get back to their original state. I was also persuaded by the fact that I could do this wherever I wanted — on a field, in a hospital, at a clinic or even a gym.

4. What are your responsibilities as a physical therapist/personal trainer?

I would say my key responsibilities are improving the function of a patient/client, preventing further injury to the patient/client and also, most importantly, teaching them how to do those two things for themselves.

5. What do you enjoy the most about the work that you do?

I enjoy watching my patients/clients gain their results and do things that they weren’t previously able to.

6. What are the challenges that you face on the job?The one challenge that I have is when patients/clients doubt themselves and lose their motivation. It can set back the rehab process a lot of the times.

7. What are the academic requirements for entry into the field?

Five CXC subjects (English, maths and at least one science subject) , two CAPE subjects (CAPE 1 and 2) with two science subjects or one science subject and math. The person must be 18 years or older and do 60 volunteer hours in a physical therapy setting.

8. What other skills and/or competencies are required for the field?

For what I do, I believe that one should have a very good grasp on the different types of exercises and exercise programmes and be able to demonstrate and perform at least at an intermediate level. Being an active fitness enthusiast has definitely been one of my strongest assets to date.

9. What is your academic background?

I started my journey at the School of Physical Therapy here in Jamaica where I received my diploma in physical therapy. A few years later I started and completed my doctorate in physical therapy via the transitional doctorate programme at NOVA Southeastern University in Florida.

10. What other activities/projects are you involved in?

Currently I’m developing my fitness group Trueform Fitness, a pet project of mine. We do boot camps, crossfit, distance runs, and recently started competing in Spartan races. It’s more geared at functional physical fitness and endurance.

11. Describe a typical day for you on the job.

My typical day starts at 5:00 am with clients at the gym or boot camp. Then I head to the Clinic of Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy for 9:00 am for patients until 4:00 pm, and then it’s back to the gym for more clients until 8:00 pm.