A Discussion With a Local PT

Pronouns: she/her | Pronunciation: Rix-ee

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

Taking on a lot of dancing, whether in a pre-professional or professional capacity, takes grit. Dancers are encouraged to push their mental and physical boundaries to create art that moves people. Nonetheless, this boundary-pushing can place strain on dancers’ minds and bodies. Without proper care, pushing oneself too far for too long simply isn’t sustainable. That’s why local physical therapist Amanda Rixey is passionate about fostering communication and collaboration among dancers, instructors, and dance medicine specialists. Read on to learn about Amanda’s own dance journey, as well as her practice, Newfound Physical Therapy PLLC.

Amanda shares that she was inspired to start dancing after watching her older sisters dance growing up. She started out at a studio geared toward dance competitions in the Kansas City area. Enduring several arm injuries as a child, Amanda was also exposed to the world of physical therapy early in her life and was quickly fascinated by it. As early as elementary school she bookmarked “PT” in her brain as a potential career option.

As Amanda entered middle school and high school, she focused more seriously on her ballet training. She continued to experience injuries, sharing that she is particularly injury-prone due to her joint laxity and hypermobility. This put her in more frequent contact with physical therapists, few of which had a deep understanding of dancers and the specialized PT needs they require.

She attended the University of Kansas on a dance scholarship, participating in a small department with four other dancers in her graduating class. While her major was dance, she also fulfilled the prerequisites for physical therapy school and worked as a physiology teaching assistant. Following her college graduation, Amanda got her Pilates certification and worked as a rehab aide before starting PT school at Regis University. She later worked with Kansas City Ballet, conducting weekly backstage screenings with dancers and local studios, and provided services for numerous touring theatre shows like Love Never Dies, Beautiful, and Dear Evan Hansen.

In May 2020, Amanda relocated to Seattle and since then, she’s been working on building out her own practice, Newfound Physical Therapy PLLC, in the Seattle area, in which she provides specialized treatment in dance medicine, and Pilates-based rehabilitation, and helps treat chronic pain conditions. Amanda also offers fitness-related services like individual and group classes for body conditioning and Pilates, as well as pointe readiness assessments. She stresses that her services are geared towards anything and anyone across the board, whether it’s dancers seeking preventative services, performers trying to figure out what is biomechanically off in their bodies, or those seeking recovery after facing a major injury. It’s important that dancers know that they don’t just have to be injured to visit a PT, in fact undergoing physical therapy before an injury occurs can reap major benefits.

Part of what inspired Amanda to start her own practice and go into PT altogether was the fact that offering treatment for dance medicine is an incredibly individualized and specific service. It can be challenging for dancers to find physical therapists that have a deep understanding of the activities they engage with on a day-to-day basis and to find specialists that will be covered by their insurance. Amanda is hoping to be that resource that dancers need in the community. “If you’ve never done it yourself…you’re not going to be able to relate to the patient,” Amanda says of providing PT services to dancers. “I want to share my knowledge with this community.”

Amanda shares that a big misconception she’s witnessed in the dance world regarding physical therapy is that people should just push through the pain they’re experiencing. While she’s grateful to see many dance companies working to change this school of thought, there are deep-rooted systems in genres like ballet that often encourage dancers to hide injuries while performing or simply not come to class. “That is tough to work around,” Amanda admits. “How do you work with that as a PT?” She emphasizes the importance of communication between physical therapists and dance instructors to ensure all involved are on the same page and not making assumptions about each other. Amanda describes her efforts as largely collaborative, with dancers, instructors, and herself all working to see each other eye-to-eye.

Ultimately, a change that Amanda hopes to see made in the dance world is more communication among individuals in different industry positions and an intentional effort made to learn from one another. “We can all learn from each other. We don’t need to keep secrets from each other,” Amanda says of the competitive nature of the dance industry. “It’s all about the dancer in the end.”

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Dr. Amanda Rixey on Collaboration in Dance Medicine

A Discussion With a Local PT