The Question That Changed My Practice
Three years ago, I started asking a question I had never asked in clinic.
Not “what supplement should this patient take?” Not “what is their hormone panel telling me?” But something simpler and, I think, more important than either of those things.
What if teaching someone to move well is the most powerful medicine I can offer?
That question changed the way I practice. And this spring, it is driving two program launches I am genuinely excited about — one for children, and one for adults.
But before I get to the programs, I want to explain the thinking behind them. Because the framework matters.
Injury Prevention Is Disease Prevention
We do not usually think of injuries and disease as the same thing. Injuries happen on the field, in the gym, on the stairs. Disease happens in a doctor’s office.
But look at what repeated injury actually does to the body. A strained hamstring leads to compensation patterns. Compensation patterns lead to chronic joint stress. Chronic joint stress leads to inflammation. Inflammation, sustained over months and years, contributes to metabolic dysfunction, immune dysregulation, and accelerated aging.
In other words, injuries do not just hurt. They accumulate. They compound. And over a lifetime, they look a great deal like disease.
The inverse is equally true. A body that moves well — with good mechanics, balanced tissues, and a trained nervous system — is a body that ages more slowly. That stays active longer. That resists the chronic inflammation that underlies so many of the conditions I treat in clinic every day.
Teaching people to move well is not a side project to my clinical work. It is an extension of it.
The Three Pillars of Injury Prevention
Everything I teach in Built to Move — and in Youth Speed Fundamentals — is built on the same three-pillar framework. This is clinical movement science, made practical.
Pillar 1: RAMP — Prepare the Body to Perform
Most injuries do not happen mid-workout. They happen in the first few minutes, when tissues are cold, joints are stiff, and the nervous system has not yet caught up with what the body is being asked to do.
RAMP is a systematic solution to this problem.
- Raise — light cardiovascular activity to increase heart rate and core tissue temperature
- Activate — targeted jumps, strides, and specific movements to wake up the key tissues involved in the session
- Mobilise and Potentiate — progressive mobility work followed by explosive movements such as sprints, jumps, and lateral cuts that prime the nervous system for high-output performance
Most people skip some version of this. They go from sitting at a desk to running at pace, or from a cold start to heavy lifting. RAMP changes that. Done properly, it does not just reduce injury risk — it measurably improves performance in the session that follows.
Pillar 2: Technique Development — Learn to Run the Right Way
Running is the most natural movement pattern the human body has. It is also among the most frequently performed incorrectly.
Overstriding, heel striking, poor arm mechanics, forward lean from the waist rather than the ankle — these are not minor inefficiencies. Over thousands of repetitions, they become the mechanism of injury. The sore knee. The tight Achilles. The recurring hip flexor strain that never quite resolves.
In both programs, I teach running technique as a skill. Not a cue sheet handed out at registration. Not a brief verbal correction during a session. A skill — the same way you would learn to swim or lift with proper form — with coaching, feedback, and enough repetition to make the new pattern automatic.
“You cannot out-train bad technique. But good technique can make even a beginner feel like an athlete.”
Pillar 3: PAP — Make Strength and Speed Work Together
Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) is one of the most well-supported concepts in sports science. The principle is this: a heavy compound strength movement performed immediately before an explosive movement — a sprint, a jump, a lateral cut — produces a measurable and immediate increase in power output.
The mechanism involves the nervous system. Heavy loading activates high-threshold motor units and temporarily increases the muscle’s contractile capacity. When an explosive movement follows within the right window, the result is greater force production than either modality would produce in isolation.
But for my patients, the more important benefit of PAP training is not performance. It is resilience. The neuromuscular connection between strength and speed — the ability to absorb force, stabilize under load, and produce power without breakdown — is exactly what prevents the injuries that accumulate over a lifetime of movement.
Strength builds the structural capacity. Speed expresses it. Resilience is what remains.
Two Programs. One Framework.
Youth Speed Fundamentals — Ages 7 to 12
Children are not small adults. They learn movement differently, they respond to coaching differently, and the window for building foundational mechanics is shorter than most parents realize.
Youth Speed Fundamentals was built to meet children where they are — with energy, engagement, and enough challenge to keep them coming back. Every session runs through the RAMP protocol, introduces proper running mechanics in a way that is accessible and fun, and builds the neuromuscular foundation that will serve them for decades.
In our first round of Youth Speed Fundamentals, every single child who completed the program got faster. Not because we pushed them harder. Because we taught them to move better.
Athletics is not the goal. A capable, resilient body for life — that is the goal. Speed is just how we get there.
Youth Speed Fundamentals — Spring Session
- Who: Children ages 7 to 12
- Where: L’école Bilingue, Vancouver
- When: Thursdays, 3:15 – 5:00 pm
- Register: drduizer.com/youth-speed-fundamentals-vancouver
Built to Move — A 5-Week Series for Adults
This is the program I have been building toward for three years.
Built to Move brings the same three-pillar methodology to adults at any fitness level. It is not a running club. It is not a boot camp. It is a one-hour Wednesday morning session that is equal parts workout, technique class, and — I will be honest — a bit of fun.
Over five weeks, we will build progressively. Week by week, you will add competency, confidence, and a deeper understanding of how your body works under load. By the time we are done, you will have a warmup protocol you can use before any workout for the rest of your life, a technical running foundation that reduces your injury risk from the first session, and a clear understanding of why strength and speed need to be trained together.
Built to Move — 5-Week Series with Dr. Duizer, ND
- Who: Adults at any fitness level — no running experience required
- Where: Granville Park, Vancouver
- When: Wednesdays, 7:00 – 8:00 am | April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
- Investment: $200 for all 5 sessions
- Register here
The Payoff: Longevity Is Built in the Body
In clinic, we spend a great deal of time managing what goes wrong. Medications, supplements, lab work, targeted protocols — all of it has value, and all of it is sometimes necessary.
But the patients who thrive long-term are not the ones with the most refined supplement stack. They are the ones who can still move freely at 70. Who never lost the habit of physical capacity. Who treated their body as a system that needed to be trained, not just treated.
That is what both of these programs are built for. Not performance as an end in itself. Longevity through capability. Movement as medicine.
“The best time to build a resilient body is before you need one.”
Whether you are registering your child for spring or stepping onto the grass at Granville Park at 7am on April 1st, you are making a decision that compounds over decades.
I will be there either way. I hope you will too.
Register for Built to Move — 5 Wednesdays starting April 1st: Book your spot here
Register your child for Youth Speed Fundamentals: drduizer.com/youth-speed-fundamentals-vancouver
Dr. David Duizer, ND
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