MOSES LAKE — In physical therapy, it’s good to have plenty of room to work in. Now, Podium Physical Therapy and Performance Training has that space. Owner Dr. Ryan Carpenter cut the ribbon on his new, larger practice Thursday afternoon.

“My idea with therapy and training was always to have a space for people to advance what they want to work on,” Carpenter said. “Our space seemed to shrink with equipment and people coming in.”

The new space is a huge increase: 6,800 square feet compared to the1,800 square feet in which he opened Podium four years ago. Carpenter moved into the building next door, which was formerly Beck ‘N Call Pet Care, and for many years before that, the Calico Cat thrift store. The process took about six months, he said.

“We fully gutted it,” Carpenter said. “Ceiling, walls, everything. It’s pretty much new on the inside other than our brick walls.”

The new space is spacious. The various exercise and therapy machines are arrayed along one side, and there’s plenty of open space on the other side. The color scheme is the same black motif that dominated the former location. The space is large enough to share with Dr. Brett DeGooyer’s practice, Elevate Primary Care Sports Medicine, which will treat patients in the same building.

Carpenter is a strong believer that physical therapy isn’t just for people with serious injuries, as from a car accident, or who are recovering from surgery. Rather, he told the Columbia Basin Herald in a previous interview, that a physical therapist can take care of a small problem when it first appears and sometimes prevents it from becoming a big problem.

“I work a lot with athletes and active adults,” Carpenter said. “Someone who's got something sticky in an exercise they're doing, or they've got a motion restriction that is limiting them from moving through that exercise properly. There can be things that you do to free that stuff up without it having to be a horrible experience." 

Strength and Conditioning Coach Kaeli Shockley has been with Podium for a little over a year, she said, and the new, expanded space gives her plenty of room to work. Like Carpenter and DeGooyer, Shockley does a lot of work with athletes, she said, both during and outside their season.

“I take them through change of direction, agility, speed training and weight training for all sports,” she said.

Shockley kind of fell into a physical therapy program at Eastern Washington University, she said, and then went on to study at the University of Montana. She works with a lot of volleyball and basketball players and with student athletes at Big Bend Community College.

The demand for strength training in Moses Lake is growing as people discover its benefits, she said.

“Not (all) parents think that’s the route that’s going to get their kid that college scholarship,” she said. “But for some, it’s another tool in their toolbox to help push them a little bit farther forward. They don’t have to go to Wenatchee or Tri-Cities or Spokane for their kid to develop as an athlete.”

Podium Physical Therapy & Performance Training

509-707-8086

Elevate Primary Care Sports Medicine

509-795-0550

416 W. Third Ave.

Moses Lake

    Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce members check out the newly expanded Podium Physical Therapy Clinic Thursday.
  

    Weight training and other equipment lines one wall of the new Podium Physical Therapy Clinic.
  

    At 6,800 square feet, Podium’s new location offers plenty of room to grow, or to do just about anything that physical therapy requires.