My Story - Mike Grice

I worked there for 2 years and soon became involved with the lifeguard and first aid training for the team and qualified as a tutor/assessor so that I could teach lifeguard, First Aid and Defibrillator courses. I also took on the role of regional operations manager for the Midlands and helped train new operations managers coming in to the business. In 2003, my son was born and I needed to move closer to home so I took on a Club Manager role with LA Fitness. LA ran their clubs very differently to Cannons and I was fortunate that LA we’re recruiting for National Trainers to teach in-house courses. I applied and got the job. I worked for 2 years traveling the UK and Ireland teaching and writing courses for LA fitness staff. I must have taught over 1000 lifeguards and first aiders during that period. This was also the time that I started my own training company. I was lucky that the contacts I had made throughout the country whilst teaching for LA also used me to deliver some of their refresher and qualification training too. Again, the traveling as a National Trainer became tough so I moved back into club management and became the Operations Manager of a Livingwell Club in Birmingham. I knew I wanted to continue my teaching so I completed a 7307 course at night school so that I had an official teaching qualification. The Livingwell club I worked at in Birmingham was right next to one of the cities biggest colleges and I managed to pick up some part time teaching on the Health and Fitness courses whilst working as an Ops manager at the health club. We created a really good link with the courses and the health club and took a number of students on as work experience and taught some of the lessons from the club too.

Eventually the college hired one of our health club meeting rooms as a permanent classroom and I taught Gym Instructor and PT courses out of my own club. I also hired the room to teach my own courses too. I had a training school with Active IQ and delivered L2,3 & 4 health, fitness and therapy courses. During that time Livingwell were bought out by Bannatyne and my role was made redundant so I applied for a full time teaching post and worked at the college for nearly 5 years. The college wanted me to help develop the Foundation Degree in community health and the Sports Therapy courses so I completed a Sports Therapy Diploma to enable me to teach it. The college also put me through my Cert Ed so that I could have Qualified Teacher Status.

Mid-Late 2000’s:

One of the instructors on my sports therapy course was an Osteopath and he was, by far, the best teacher and inspired me to do an Osteopathy degree. Before I started the Osteopathy degree (in the summer) I attended a series of biomechanics workshops with Martin Haines and he was to play a major role in my development in the late 2000’s and going into the 10’s. I completed the degree whilst continuing to teach full time but in the 4th year of the degree I had to drop my work hours as the studying was getting too much.  It was at that time that I was asked to become a programme director for Intelligent Training Systems (ITS). I helped convert the Biomechanics Diploma into a nationally recognised Level 4 course and we taught the programme all over the UK and even trained Personal Trainers and Athletic Trainers in the US (in Chicago -  which is one of my favourite cities!). As part of the teaching team with ITS I regularly presented at FitPro and the International Fitness Showcase as well as touring the Esporta Health Club chain to train their fitness teams. I gave up my teaching role at the college to work with ITS as it was far more flexible and I could work the job around my final couple of years on the Osteo degree. In the first year of Osteo we attended the cadaver labs at Keele University and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to do. So, (just because I wasn’t busy enough already!) I started a Post Grad in Clinical Anatomy in my 4th year of the Osteo degree. I managed to complete the Post Grad before I finished my Osteo Degree so I came out of that period in the early 2010’s as an Anatomist and an Osteopath.

Early 2010’s:

When I completed the Sports Therapy Diploma I had started to hire rooms so that I could practice what I was teaching and as soon as I graduated as an Osteopath I opened Movement Therapy Clinic in Birmingham. As with starting all new businesses, it was slow to get going. I needed to supplement my income so I applied for a Sports Therapy Lecturer role at University College Birmingham (back to where I started!) I worked as a visiting lecturer initially and then got a permanent role and continued to build my practice around lecturing. I eventually got my own premises in 2014. 2014 was the teaching pinnacle of my career when I was asked to present 3 lectures at the IOC World Conference for Injury Prevention in Monaco. I started to do more and more work with Martin Haines and have been working for him on projects with Boots, Startrite Shoes and Microscooter as part of the BryteSpark consultancy team.

I also developed my L3 and L4 courses in Therapy in to what the Movement Therapy Diploma is today. I identified a gap between traditional L3,4 and 5 courses and clinical qualifications and felt that given the right information those that did not want to go to University should have the opportunity to learn clinical reasoning skills so that they can understand the referral process in greater detail and make them safer practitioners. In the early 2010’s I taught for John Gibbons, IAM Tools, Oxford School of Sports Massage, Naqi and guest lectured at a number of Universities throughout the UK and Europe. I was also now becoming established on the speaking network for therapy and was one of the main lecturers at the very first Therapy Expo when it was in Manchester. It was at the Manchester show where I first met Gary Benson and he was just starting the Sports Therapy Association - I loved what he was trying to do and have been a part of the STA since. I am now part of the RockTape team and teach their courses as part of the Movement Therapy Diploma and for the RockTape training calendar. I now focus on treating patients 2 days a week and the rest of the time on the Diploma course. We opened two additional training schools in Liverpool and Leeds and started adding additional modules to the Diploma - adapting to the changing environment of Healthcare provision.

Late 2010’s - Now

I started working with Venn Healthcare after purchasing a Radial and Focus shockwave mechine fro my Birmingham clinic and started writing and delivering shockwave therapy programmes for sports therapists. There was a significant anatomy and pathology knowledge gap in a number of students that were attending shockwave workshops and I wanted to make sure that sports therapists had the information and training that they needed to bridge this gap and get the most out of their shockwave devices. Everything was going really well and then covid hit! We closed the clinic and immediately had to switch our face to face learning to online. I was always very skeptical about online learning (and still am for certain things) but it has now transformed the way we teach. Because I had switched to online learning within days of the first lockdown I had learnt by mistakes, and am now able to deliver top quality education online. It was during this period that I started teaching Learn Anatomy Online -

I had no idea how long it would last for or where it would go but I am currently on the 170+ episode of my weekly anatomy education programme! I have adapted the content over time and the latter episodes are produced in a much more professional way than at the beginning! We have also been able to dive really deeply into anatomy and pathology which has hugely benefitted our Diploma students. The online exposure also opened new doors and I contributed to online conferences in Brazil and Romania - two places I would never have dreamed of teaching in before the covid pandemic. It was due to the success of Learn Anatomy Online that I was also invited to teach Anatomy in Denver, USA to a group learning about shockwave therapy and the course went so well that I was invited back to teach in Las Vegas and Atlanta that same year. I have now written a bespoke anatomy training programme for shockwave users in the States which covers all of the main tendinopathic conditions so that users of shockwave can get the most out of their devices.

In 2021 I was asked to write an up to date Level 3 Sports Massage course for Future Fit Training - this was one of the first times (that I have ever heard) where a company like Future Fit had invested in making sure that their learners had the most up to date information about sports massage from Level 3 (foundation level). This then led to the creation of Sports Massage Education (SME). The jump from zero to Level 4/5 for beginners to the industry is a substantial one and whilst it can be done, I felt that a lot of learners were learning really good hands on skills but then time on critical thinking and clinical reasoning was limited. So, I created a foundation pathway, SME, so that learners had a sound base of scope of practice, good hands on with an up to date and evidence led narrative which, should they choose to do so, help them ease on to our Diploma course. I set up training schools in Glasgow, Liverpool, Northampton, Poole and Cornwall so that we could start people on the right path from the beginning of their therapy career.

In 2024 I decided to close my Birmingham Clinic and open a brand new training facility in Ludlow in Shropshire and this is the future of my involvement in Movement Therapy Education. I still see patients at my private clinic 2-3 times a week and have now moved my teaching to the beautiful Shropshire Hills.

As you can see I have a career in the industry spanning 30 years. I started off as a part time lifeguard and working in a fish and chip shop and now run my own training school and clinic. It’s been hard work and I’ve doubted whether it has been worth it (many times!) but the people that I have met along the way have been one of the main reasons for carrying on. This is a people industry - if you love helping people then you are doing the right thing.