By Dan Remon · Evidence checked October 2026
When your car won’t start, you don’t guess. You take it to a mechanic who asks what happened, looks under the bonnet and tells you what’s probably wrong before he picks up a spanner.
With your body, most people skip straight to the spanner. A new program, a massage, a stretch someone posted online. Random fixes for a problem nobody has assessed.
I’ve coached since 1998, and anything that hurts or won’t move properly goes to a body mechanic: a physiotherapist or qualified manual therapist who assesses first and treats second. At Aspire in Bangkok, physiotherapy sits in the same team as coaching for that reason.
What is a body mechanic?
A body mechanic is the professional you see when part of your body hurts, stiffens or stops doing what it used to: usually a physiotherapist, sometimes another qualified manual therapist. Like a good car mechanic, they ask specific questions, test how you move, tell you the most likely problem and give you a plan. The plan combines hands-on treatment with exercises you do yourself, because the exercise is the part you keep doing after the sessions end. Put one on your team before you need them, and small problems get handled before they cost you weeks of training.
Why the assessment comes first
You don’t drop your car at the garage and say “fix it”. The mechanic asks when the noise started, what makes it worse and what you’ve already tried. The questions narrow the problem before any tools come out.
A good body mechanic works the same way. Expect questions like these before anyone touches you:
- When it started, and what you were doing at the time.
- What makes it better or worse, and when in the day it’s at its worst.
- What your week looks like: desk hours, flights, training and sleep.
- What you’ve already tried, and what happened.
- What you want to get back to doing.
Then comes the testing: how you move, where your range runs out, what’s strong and what isn’t. Only then do you get the likely problem and the plan, in plain language.
Exercise matters, but it isn’t the starting point. The assessment decides which exercise, how much and in what order. Skip it and you’re back to random training, the gap I wrote about in training versus workouts. You can’t upgrade what you refuse to audit.
What a physio or manual therapist does for you
A physiotherapist or manual therapist works with 2 kinds of tools. Hands-on treatment, such as joint mobilisation, manipulation and soft tissue work. And exercise you take away and do yourself. The best evidence for how the 2 compare is in back pain.
The Cochrane review of exercise therapy for chronic low back pain (pain lasting more than 12 weeks) pooled 249 randomised trials.1 It found moderate-certainty evidence that exercise probably reduces pain compared with no treatment, usual care or placebo, by about 15 points on a 100-point scale, which the authors counted as clinically important. The effect on day-to-day function was smaller, about 7 points, below their threshold for a meaningful change. Compared head to head with manual therapy, exercise made no difference to pain.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) puts the 2 together. Its guideline says to consider manual therapy for low back pain, with or without sciatica, but only as part of a treatment package that includes exercise.2
That’s how I want a body mechanic to work. Hands-on treatment to get you moving, then a short list of exercises you own, so the result holds after you leave the clinic. In my teams, pain goes to the physio first and comes back to the coach as training. I coach. I don’t diagnose.
When to see a doctor first
A body mechanic isn’t the first stop for everything. The NHS lists signs with back pain that need emergency help, including pain, tingling, weakness or numbness in both legs, changes in bladder or bowel control, loss of feeling around the genitals or anus, chest pain, and pain that started after a serious accident.3 It advises an urgent GP appointment if you feel hot, shivery or generally unwell, or the pain is severe and came on suddenly.
It also advises seeing a GP if the pain hasn’t improved after a few weeks of looking after it at home, stops you doing day-to-day activities, is worse at night or comes with weight loss you can’t explain. If none of those apply and something keeps tightening, aching or limiting your training, book the body mechanic.
How to find a good body mechanic
Treat it like a hire, because it is one. Do your research and interview them: experience, qualifications, personality, how they present themselves and what other clients say about working with them. Then watch for 5 things in the first session:
- They ask before they touch. The questions above, or close to them.
- They test, then explain. You leave knowing the likely problem in plain language.
- They give you homework. A short list of exercises, not a standing appointment with nothing to do in between.
- They set a re-test. The same movement or measure, checked again on a date you both know.
- They talk to your coach. Treatment and training point the same way, so the plan moves from the clinic into your sessions.
If you train with a coach or trainer, they’re the other half of the team. I set out what a good one changes in 10 reasons you need a personal trainer.
The minimum effective dose for mobility work
Most mobility plans fail on volume. 20 stretches, every day, held for as long as you can stand. A plan like that rarely survives a busy week.
Minimum effective dose is the principle I run training on: the smallest amount that produces the result, done consistently. Anything above it costs time without adding much. I explain the idea in full in why you need minimum effective dose. For mobility, the research gives a clear floor.
In a randomised trial, 93 adults with tight hamstrings stretched 5 days a week for 6 weeks.4 Holding the stretch for 30 seconds worked as well as 60 seconds, and stretching once a day worked as well as 3 times a day. A 2018 review of 23 studies found range-of-motion gains when stretching added up to at least 5 minutes a week, and concluded that stretching at least 5 days a week may help.5
You may not need a separate stretching session at all. A 2023 meta-analysis of 55 studies found resistance training improved range of motion, with no significant difference from stretch training.6 The exception was training with body weight only, which didn’t produce a significant gain. Loaded lifting through a full range counts as mobility work.
This is the dose I give people:
- Pick 1 or 2 areas. The ones your body mechanic flagged, not a full-body list.
- 2 holds of 30 seconds per area, 5 days a week. That’s 5 minutes a week per area, and it fits around your morning coffee.
- Lift through a full range 2 to 3 times a week. Loaded squats, hinges, presses and rows, to a depth you control.
- Re-test every 4 weeks. Use the same test your body mechanic used. If the number moves, keep the dose. If it doesn’t, go back and adjust.
- Stop if it hurts more. Pain that builds during or after the work goes back to your body mechanic.
The whole dose fits around training you already do: small enough to survive a week of flights, consistent enough to compound. If you’d rather fold the stretching into your sessions, put it in your warm-up. I lay out my version in how to warm up with purpose.
How to start
- The 1% Scorecard. 8 questions, 2 minutes, free. You get your Compound Index, the system that’s leaking most and the one thing to install first.
- A body mechanic in Bangkok. At Aspire Coaching & Physio, physiotherapy and coaching sit in the same team, so the assessment, the treatment and the training run as one plan.
Assess first. Then fix the right thing.
Related reading: HIIT vs cardio: what the research says and how to use both and 3 fitness mistakes women make trying to lose weight and get lean.
FAQ
Should I see a physio or a personal trainer?
See a physio first if something hurts, keeps tightening or limits how you move. See a trainer when you’re clear to train and want a progressive program. The best setup is both, working from the same assessment.
Is exercise or manual therapy better for back pain?
For chronic low back pain, a Cochrane review of 249 trials found exercise probably reduces pain compared with no treatment, usual care or placebo, and found no difference in pain between exercise and manual therapy. The UK’s NICE guideline says to consider manual therapy only as part of a package that includes exercise. Use both, with the exercise as the part you keep doing.
How often should I do mobility exercises?
In a randomised trial, 30-second stretches done once a day, 5 days a week, worked as well as longer or more frequent stretching. A 2018 review found gains when stretching added up to at least 5 minutes a week. 2 holds of 30 seconds per area, 5 days a week, covers both.
When should I see a physiotherapist?
When pain or stiffness keeps coming back, hasn’t settled after a few weeks or limits your training and daily life. See a doctor first if you have warning signs such as numbness or weakness in both legs, changes in bladder or bowel control, or pain after a serious accident.
Sources
- Hayden, J. A., Ellis, J., Ogilvie, R., Malmivaara, A., & van Tulder, M. W. (2021). Exercise therapy for chronic low back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 9(9), CD009790. doi.org/
10.1002/ 14651858.CD009790.pub2 - National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2016, last updated 2026). Low back pain and sciatica in over 16s: Assessment and management (NICE guideline NG59), recommendation 1.2.7. nice.org.uk/guidance/ng59
- NHS. (2026). Back pain. Page last reviewed 5 March 2026. nhs.uk/conditions/back-pain
- Bandy, W. D., Irion, J. M., & Briggler, M. (1997). The effect of time and frequency of static stretching on flexibility of the hamstring muscles. Physical Therapy, 77(10), 1090-1096. doi.org/10.1093/ptj/77.10.1090
- Thomas, E., Bianco, A., Paoli, A., & Palma, A. (2018). The relation between stretching typology and stretching duration: The effects on range of motion. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(4), 243-254. doi.org/10.1055/s-0044-101146
- Alizadeh, S., Daneshjoo, A., Zahiri, A., Anvar, S. H., Goudini, R., Hicks, J. P., Konrad, A., & Behm, D. G. (2023). Resistance training induces improvements in range of motion: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 53(3), 707-722. doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01804-x
This article is general information, not medical advice.
