Nick Torrance

The stories we tell ourselves about our bodies matter more than most people realise. 🧠

This week I heard two that stopped me in my tracks.

“It’s probably arthritis — I just have to live with it.”

The reality is: there’s actually no strong relationship between what shows up on a scan and how much pain you’re in. The stronger and more resilient you build that knee, the better it gets.

“I’ve got disc degeneration on my scan, so I stopped running to protect my back.”

Disc degeneration happens to every single one of us as we age. It’s like grey hair. By the end of our lives, none of us have the discs we started with — it’s a completely normal part of getting older.

Stopping movement to “protect” a degenerating disc is like stopping going outside to protect your hair from going grey.

Beliefs aren’t truth. They’re tools.

You can carry helpful ones or unhelpful ones — and the one you choose to walk around with will shape what you do, what you avoid, and ultimately how you recover.

Part of our job as physios is helping you swap out the ones that are quietly holding you back.

If a belief is stopping you from moving, loading, or trusting your body — it’s worth questioning. 👇

Outside hip pain? Stop Stretching it (for now). 🙅‍♀️

Stretching this one makes it worse — not better.

The tissue is irritated. Stretching compresses it against the bone. That’s why it flares up at night and first thing in the morning.

What works → isometric glute loading + fixing the positions that aggravate it.

We’ve helped a lot of people get out of this cycle ✨

📍 Book online via the link in bio (Auckland)
📩 Outside Auckland? DM us and we’ll help you find someone

TendonRehab

There’s a big trend in physio right now toward everything being hands off and evidence based exercises only.

Now, exercise matters. A lot. Infact it’s how you fix pretty much everything.

But ...

A lot of pain comes from old movement patterns causing tight muscles, compression, overload, and stress through joints and tissues.

So if certain muscles overworking limiting movement, how do you expect someone to retrain a better pattern without first creating some freedom in the system?

That’s where hands-on treatment can help.

Using manual therapy, myofascia release work, or dry needling to reduce tension and calm things down can create a window to move better, load better, and retrain better.

In my experience, the combo gets people out of pain faster. #

How many times have I heard this?
“My knee hurts… it’s probably arthritis.”

Honestly, if I had a dollar for every time, I’d be rich.

The thing is: osteoarthritis is usually more like age-related change. It’s often there gradually over time, not something that usually appears out of nowhere over a few days or weeks.

So if your knee pain came on recently, there’s a good chance it’s not just “arthritis.” It could be from:

a fall or twist

doing too much too soon

poor movement patterns

what I’d call a “wheel alignment” issue in the body

And the good news is, these are what we help with.

So if you’ve been putting off getting your knee checked because you assumed it was arthritis, don’t wait.
Get it assessed properly and get a clear plan.

If you’re in Auckland, come and see me.

You strain a calf/hammy/quad…
For 3 days you can barely walk.
10 days later you feel “good”…
So you run. BOOM. Back to square one.

That’s the 10-Day Trap.

A muscle strain isn’t “fixed” when you can walk normally.
Your body lays down early scar tissue in the first few days — and that new tissue needs load + time to become strong, elastic, and explosive again.

✅ Walk/run ability returns fast
❌ Strength, endurance, and power return slower

Most people can start rehab around day 3 (once the acute flare settles).
Then you build: strength → endurance → speed/power
So you return to sport in weeks, not in repeated 10-day cycles.

Don’t be the “run every 10 days and re-do it” person.

Most people get injured and go straight to: “I should stop everything.”
Usually that’s the wrong move.

Injury rehab is about load management — not panic and at Beyond balance. Physio Parnell we will keep you training.

If it’s not a fracture or red flag case, we can usually keep you training while you recover.

We coordinate with your coach/trainer so your plan works in the real world — not just in the clinic.

Because for a lot of people, training isn’t optional.
It’s what keeps life stable.

Stop trying to “sit up straight” all day — that quite often makes back pain worse

If you’re at a desk and your back keeps flaring, here’s why:

Your body starts using the wrong muscles — the “sprinters” — to hold posture for hours.
They fatigue fast, tighten up, and compress your spine.

What works better:

Lean back and use your chair support

Change position often

Down train your sprinting muscles and up train your postural muscles

Work smarter not harder.

You can never train your money-making systems enough.

In physio, your money-making system is the entire patient journey—from the first consult to graduation, and every touchpoint in between.

Early on, I’d train a new staff member once, expect them to nail it, then wonder why KPIs dropped weeks later.
So I’d retrain… and guess what? Numbers climbed, patient experience improved, and everything clicked again.
Then it dropped. Again.

Eventually, we trained our patient journey every fortnight.

Different section. Every two weeks.
That’s when the magic happened.
Patients raved. Staff were consistent. KPIs became predictable.

So here’s my question to you:
Do you have a defined patient journey?
Does your team know it inside out?
When was the last time you trained it?

Train your money-making systems more than you think you need to.
The results will follow.

When I first opened my clinic, I still thought like an employee.

I believed you needed a break to succeed.
That marketing was sleazy.
That selling made me “pushy.”
And I had major money blocks.

The truth?
A successful business only happens when you break those beliefs.

I used hypnotherapy, NLP, coaching—whatever it took to rewire my thinking and shift from employee mindset to business owner mindset.

If you're feeling stuck, burnt out, or unsure why you're not at the next level…
Start here:
What belief is holding you back from building the clinic—and the life—you actually want?

Want help breaking through?
Join my next training for physio clinic owners ready to go from stuck to scaling.