From Shoulder Pain To World Pole Sport Champion

It's wonderful to see success like this.

Paul Bradley now competes globally in pole sport, a mix of dance and acrobatics. He is a former weightlifter but about 20 years ago suffered a fall onto his shoulder and sustained a serious injury. He was unable to continue with his sport and activities and was left with persistent pain; especially when he lifted his arm overhead.

I met him when he joined a study at the University of Southampton. I had just started collaborating with Maria Stokes, Professor of Physiotherapy at the School of Health Sciences and her team. I initiated the idea for the study after my clinical success of helping people in similar situations. My role was to develop the interventions because of my specialist approach to healthy movement.
 
I applied these strategies to Paul. We used individualised movement training to help him fully recover. And were able to measure his shoulder motion and coordination and muscle activity with specialised equipment.
 
Paul's recovery led to a new sport and global success:  first as World Champion and now the world record holder for his category and age in Pole Sport.

He says it transformed his life.

It's totally transformed what I can do and how I can do it. I've always been fit and active, over a period of a couple of years, I was back to doing anything that I was doing before. It totally changed my life.

This project was the beginning of many that have supported the proof of concept behind The Healthy Movement Programme.

Click here more about the project at the University of Southampton