Whether you’re there for the state-of-the-art facilities, to assess and treat an injury or condition, or to benefit from specialized programming, Trent Health in Motion is on a mission to empower you to move better, feel stronger, and remain active.
Located within the Trent University Athletics Centre in Peterborough, Trent Health in Motion is open to the public, providing personalized care for sports rehabilitation, injury recovery, and overall wellness. With a therapy pool, full weight room, and cardio loft with views of the Otonabee River, Trent Health in Motion’s facilities support a range of fitness, rehabilitation, and performance goals.
Services practised at the clinic include orthopedic physiotherapy, pelvic physiotherapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy, personal training, dietitian services, hydrotherapy, and sport medicine physician consultations. Not only are each of these healthcare providers found under one roof, but they collaborate in an integrated way.
Healthcare providers collaborating under one roof for better client outcomes
“We’re not just working in the same space or in the same building — we’re working together,” says Michael Williams, a physiotherapist and co-owner of Trent Health in Motion.
“That means we’re being intentional about mentoring and sitting down together as a group to communicate about challenging cases or new research or new ideas about services that we could provide, based on what we’re seeing and hearing from clients. We’re communicating and trying to work in an integrated way to get to the best outcomes for the people that we work with.”
The clinic’s unique setting and immense potential is what initially drew Williams and his wife Reanna Montopoli, a Peterborough-raised physiotherapist, to manage the clinic beginning in 2016. The couple, who met while studying physiotherapy at Queen’s University, were inspired by the clinic’s location on a university campus, its beautiful natural light and views of the Otonabee River, and the ability to use the surrounding athletic facilities.
Since taking over ownership of Trent Health in Motion in 2018, Williams and Montopoli have intentionally grown the business into a true integrated hub — expanding the team to include more diverse healthcare professionals and services, and embedding a deep focus on collaboration and lifelong learning.
“It’s worthwhile from a client perspective, but also from a care provider perspective,” Williams says. “No one healthcare provider can manage every single issue that someone comes with.”
“If we can identify our strengths and refer clients to other team members for their specific expertise, it leads to a better outcome. If we learn how to work together more effectively, it leads to us being more fulfilled as providers and delivering a higher level of care to our clients.”
Staying current with evolving research to provide evidence-informed care
Learning from one another is one of the core ways Trent Health in Motion ensures their clients benefit from the most up-to-date care. Because health science is constantly evolving, the clinic makes a continuous effort to stay on top of new studies so they can best support their clients’ recovery and wellness.
“We take on students for clinical placements, which forces us to re-evaluate our knowledge and make sure we’re sharp because they’re asking questions and we want to be able to answer well and guide them in the right direction,” Williams says.
The clinic also hosts programming for continued education, like The Female Athlete Course that was led by world-renowned Australian physiotherapist Antony Lo last month.
All of Trent Health in Motion’s physiotherapists and one massage therapist took the course, which provides evidence-informed frameworks to help women train and perform. The course was well-attended by other professionals in the community and beyond, including some who travelled from as far as New York state.
“We host continuing education courses because most of the courses that are available, unless they are virtual, are going to be in Toronto or Ottawa,” Montopoli says. “There isn’t much that’s offered in this community, but we have a lot of healthcare and fitness professionals here, so we want to become a hub.”
On October 17 and 18, Trent Health in Motion will be hosting the Fundamentals of Running Injuries course, which will provide best practices and the most recent science to professionals and those who are running, learning to run, or engaging in sports that require running. Learn more about the course curriculum or register for the Peterborough event.
“People often struggle to know how to appropriately get started or they get derailed when they try to do something but hurt an ankle. Now that hurdle to become active becomes a lot bigger,” says Williams.
“Running is really accessible as a low-cost option to be active, and we want to encourage those things. It’s incumbent for us to try to learn the most recent evidence that supports that type of goal.”
Leading by example to promote active living
In fact, Trent Health in Motion frequently endorses active transportation by participating in the Shifting Gears May Challenge, an annual initiative from GreenUP that encourages Peterborough businesses and residents to make the shift to active and sustainable transportation together.
Also a member of GreenUP’s Green Economy Peterborough program, Trent Health in Motion has a corporate membership with B!KE, Peterborough’s community bike shop, to remove the barriers for employees to cycle to work.
“In our society, it’s just so normalized that everyone drives their own car to work every single day, but we’re just trying to normalize other ways of doing it that are better for the environment and for your health,” Montopoli says. “We try to lead by example and support staff who are interested and try to promote it for clients who might be interested as well.”
An evidence-based approach to increasing bone density
As proof of how research can inform practice, Trent Health in Motion recently held a free high-intensity strength and impact training program for people with osteoporosis and osteopenia called Lift for Life. The program was structured based on a landmark study from Australia that proved training consistently can increase bone density, despite the previous belief that people with these conditions should stay away from training.
“Some of the things that we thought were problematic — like jumping and landing with force and lifting with heavier weights — have actually been shown to improve strength and bone density when tested over a longer time and done with supervision and guidance and progressive increases,” Williams says.
“When we were in school, we were taught that’s not how things work — that once your bone density started to decline, there was no possibility for even small improvement. This study completely changed that narrative by proving we can actually reverse that decline.”
Through a successful collaborative grant application with Activity Haven Seniors Centre, with funding provided by the Government of Ontario, Trent Health in Motion secured the resources necessary to offer the Lift for Life program completely free of charge, meeting a surge of interest from the local community.
The clinical data gathered from the program is now being studied in collaboration with researcher Christina Ziebart at Western University, with the ultimate goal of publishing a manuscript to share the findings with the wider medical community.
“We’re taking current evidence and trying to apply it locally in a way that no one else was really doing, including by partnering with other organizations in the community,” says Montopoli. “We recognize that cost is often a barrier for people, so trying to find opportunities where we can find funding to, if not eliminate cost, at least reduce it where possible, is really important.”
Helping seniors and new moms stay active while creating a sense of community
Trent Health in Motion provides other high-demand targeted programming to seniors, such as the Seniors in Motion and the Seniors Motion and Mobility programs. These ongoing programs promote healthy aging while fostering social and community-building opportunities.
Further making active living and education accessible, the Moms in Motion program was originally launched as a free community initiative to remove financial barriers for new parents. These weekly prenatal and postpartum sessions combine expert-led group exercises with targeted educational discussions to tackle common misconceptions about exercising during and after pregnancy.
“It also creates a sense of community with the participants because they’re coming every single week with the same group,” Montopoli says. “It can be a very isolating time in life, so having that community support is really beneficial.”
Looking ahead, as Trent Health in Motion expands services — including the upcoming onboarding of mental health professionals — Montopoli and Williams are looking for other opportunities to adapt to what clients in the community need and what the most recent science suggests.
“We’ll continue to work with different partners to try to access funding for people in the community,” Montopoli says. “There are a lot of different avenues where we can have a positive impact for our clients and the community and we’re definitely trying to touch on as many of those as we can.”
Trent Health in Motion is located at 1600 West Bank Drive in Peterborough. For more information, visit www.trenthealthinmotion.ca, contact info@trenthealthinmotion.ca, or follow Trent Health in Motion on Facebook and Instagram.
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