ABOUT WAYNE MILICICH
Professional life
As a health professional (my back ground training was as a Physiotherapist) I realised some 20 years ago that what I was taught to do as a health professional was not working as well as I would like.
SOME of the advice and SOME of the exercises I gave you and also SOME of the things I did to you did not work very well for you. At that point you probably tried some other form of treatment and may be you are still seeking an answer or help as nothing so far has given you the outcome you are seeking.
There was very lilttle science or research to back up what we were doing (and still very little to this day) and the proof is in the pudding…… a lot of it is not living up to the promise.
The solution I’m going to present to you is the end result of 35 years of experience, curiosity and seeking the truth. When I realised what I was doing was not working well enough I invested over 5 years in the early 90’s on my own personal development and education seeking the answers to the question ”what do I NOT know?”
I now have new knowledge and processes to apply as a Human Movement and Performance Trainer and specialise in Injury Prevention.
I have always had a passion for anatomy and human body function and performance.
In the beginning I undertook considerable post graduate training in manipulative therapy of the human body. There are many different schools of thought and over the years I studied methods as McKenzie, Maitland, Karltenborn, Jarnda, Mulligan.
An interest in sport saw me take many sports medicine courses for conditioning, fitness and stretching, injury treatment and recovery. Also soft tissue techniques such as trigger point therapy, accupuncture and myofascial release, joint mobilisation and PNF were part of my portfolio.
My goal was to be the absolute best at what I was applying myself to.
My clinic was extremely reputable for ‘good out comes’ and at the end of the first 10 years of practice, I felt at the top of my game. New people would come to see me and all my past clients would return. I had grown the clinic to be the largest in the region. Our clinic achieved an average of 4 treatments per referral to discharge when the national average for physiotherapy in NZ was 7 treatments. Our clients were benefiting in every way.
While feeling at the top of my game I began to notice that much of our work was coming from the same people that would return to the clinic with a recurrence of the same problem. When I pulled the statistics out, the work at the clinic comprised of 80% of the work was from 20% of the client base. That is a lot of repeat business, most of it, for a recurrence of their same problem. This did not look very good!
At this time I asked myself some hard questions:
Am I as good as I think I am???
If I had solved the problem for someone in the past, why has it now returned?
I BECAME DISILLUSIONED WITH PHYSIOTHERAPY, but still had a passion for helping people.
When people dont get better most medical people put responsibility back on the client and point out that ‘you did not do what I told you’. This attitude leaves the person feeling guilty and much like a failure!
I did not take this attitude.
My thought process was ‘I am failing these people, what am I missing? What do I NOT know?’
This set me on a quest. I went out and looked at some of what the medical people call ‘fringe treatment’. These methods are out there, and if they did not have some benefit and work for some people they would not survive. So what are they doing, and why are they working for some people? I looked at Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method in particular and the Martial Arts. I did not go near the crystal wavers or colour therapy, as these were beyond what my rational mind could entertain.
While studying these methods I experienced a personal revelation and with the back ground of all my training, managed to rationalise what had happened.
Through that revelation I developed new understanding and skills of observation that I had not learnt from all my previous training. I have been given such a gift that I could ‘see’, in slo’mo’, every muscle working in 3D, as someone walks down the street or picks something off the floor or 'moves' for any task or activity.
The primary focus for me was to observe, in absolute detail, how the uninjured and, high performing people, of all ages and from all walks of life, move. At the same time I observed these same movements in my own young children.
Observations reveal that there are common actions or movements that the uninjured all share and demonstrate, and common actions or movements that the injured people all demonstrate. The uninjured deviate from the injured.
The uninjured, high performing people demonstrate the same principles of movement in all their actions of daily living as all 5 year olds. As adults they still move like they did when they were 5yrs.
The injured on the other hand no longer move in a way that they once did as 5 year olds.
I changed my approach and no longer treated people. I merely educated people so that they could re-learn the same key principles that the uninjured people had retained; the same movement systems as 5 year olds.
The amazing thing was that as they made this change, their symptoms would resolve, instantly for some people and over a short time for others.
This was a huge mind shift; I stopped working ‘on’ people and began to work ‘with’ people.
I set myself a challenge. I wanted to ‘put myself out of business!’ I did not want anyone to have to come back to see me again for the same problem.
This was so successful, that by word of mouth, I became so busy my appointment book was full 4 months out! Now, 80% of my clients were new and only 20% repeat. Eventually I was so busy I ‘hit the wall’! I could not go on this way.
I set about converting the process into ‘group training’ to take out into industry as an injury prevention training programme.
Again this was so successful that the programme is now well established in NZ as Move @ work and in Australia as Move 4 life. These programmes are now the leading injury prevention training programmes for very large corporations in these countries.
One of the questions that people would ask after a training session is ‘How do I share this with my family and friends? This is so simple everyone needs to know it.’
That is why you are on this web site. I am offering this to anyone and everyone.
I care, that for want of this simple knowledge, people are hurting themselves unnecessarily.
I could have taken this into sports performance more than I have, where there is more ‘glory’, but my heart is for every person out there who is unwittingly and inadvertently damaging themselves.
ON A PERSONAL LEVEL
I am first a husband to Margaret and a father to my family. My family is everything.
I have 5 children now aged 26 down to 17, one daughter at the top and four sons.
My R&R is fishing and waterskiing. I am a lousy spectator (except when it comes to my own children) when it comes to sport as I prefer to be out there doing it.
I believe the family that ‘plays together stays together’ and we have played ‘hard out’ as a family and even with my family now scattered around the world we are all still very together.
What started as recreational play with waterskiing was so loved by the family that all my sons have taken it to the next level. They turned it into a competitive sport where they have all been national champions at their respective age divisions. Three have represented NZ in international competition and currently representing NZ on the international stage.
They all perform at a top level in their age groups for winter team sports.
Why have my children done so well with sport? I take no credit, other than making sure they all reached (and some still to reach) physical maturity as young adults with the same movement principles that they learned as 5 yr olds. I did not have to teach them this.
They have not unlearned these foundational principles for human movement.
This has given a coach a fantastic canvas to work with, on which to build performance to the highest level. My children did the training and coaching, were dedicated to their goals, so they get all the credit.
One of my boys is such an exceptional ‘mover’, that having never ever been on snow skis in his life, skied weekends for one winter, and at the end of that season, became an international stage 1 snow ski instructor at age 18. He gets all the recognition and credit. He did the work.
I am proud but not boasting.
I would love to share what I have to offer, with Move like a Child, to any parent that would like to set their children up to perform well in their sport and avoid the scourge of the modern world, UNECCESSARY STRAIN AND SPRAIN INJURY.