Injury & Pain
Build A Game Around The Movement Your Client Avoids
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in Games for Pain →
In short: Games for Pain teaches a toolkit of games for clients who are cleared to train but guard against movement from pain or fear of it returning. Turning the feared movement into a game drops the guarding and gets a client doing more than a standard, instruction-led session ever would.
The Game Gets More Out Of A Guarded Client Than The Instruction Ever Did
The short version
A client on your books moves fine most of the time and then tenses the moment one particular exercise comes up, guarding a joint that's been sore before or one they're convinced will be again. Telling them to relax rarely works. Games for Pain is built around a simpler fix: turn the movement into a game, and the guarding tends to drop on its own.
Key Takeaways
- Games for Pain teaches a toolkit of games for clients cleared to train but guarding against movement, usually from pain or fear it will come back.
- Turning a feared movement into a game gets a guarded client doing more of it than a standard, instruction-led session would.
- It costs £375, paid in full or in three payments with Klarna at checkout, and counts as active learning for PT Manager.
Guarding isn't stubbornness
A client who tenses up before a set isn't being difficult. Their body is doing exactly what it learned to do the last time that movement hurt, or the last time someone told them it might. Instructing them to relax asks them to override that on command, and that mostly doesn't work, because the guard was never a decision in the first place.
Why a game gets past it
A game changes what the client is paying attention to. Chasing a target, beating a score, reacting to a partner, all of that pulls focus away from the joint they've been protecting, and the movement happens without the same bracing. Games for Pain teaches how to build that game around the specific movement a specific client is avoiding, tailored to that client rather than pulled from a generic warm-up list.
Building your own, not copying a list
The course doesn't hand you a fixed set of games and leave you to apply them regardless of who's in front of you. It teaches the reasoning behind why a game works on a guarded movement, so you can build a new one for whatever a client is avoiding this week. Same instinct as rule the tool, one level up: understand why it works and no fixed list can fence you in.
What to do next
Games for Pain costs £375, paid in full or in three payments with Klarna at checkout, and it counts as active learning, so PT Manager access runs while you study.
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Games for Pain — taught by the people who wrote it, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
Also worth a look: PT Manager, lifetime access once a course is complete.
See what the course covers →Frequently asked
Does Games for Pain work for any client who's cautious, or just ones in pain?
It's built for clients cleared to train but guarding against movement, most often from pain, past injury or fear it will return. The same instinct helps any hesitant client, but that's who it's built for.
Do I need a clinical background to use this course?
No. It teaches you to build and adapt games for the client and the problem in front of you, not to diagnose or treat. Clients still need to be cleared to train first.
Does completing Games for Pain affect my PT Manager access?
Yes. It counts as active learning, so PT Manager access runs while you study, and completing it unlocks free lifetime return access to the course.
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