We were lucky to catch up with David Abookire recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the story behind how you got your first job in field that you currently practice in.

When I was at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy, I dove deeply into the study of Sports Massage, Anatomy, Orthopedic Massage and Injury Rehab treatments. All I wanted to do was work with athletes.

I was very fortunate to be accepted at an internship with the Colorado Rapids professional soccer team. What a dream come true to work with a professional team, high-level athletes, a skilled medical staff and to be on the field working at the home and some away games. I was thrilled and LOVED working with the players.

During that internship, I devoured information. I was the “why” guy (still am). I asked the Doctors, Physical Therapists, Trainers and Chiropractors what I could do to support their work. I learned about how each medical professional “saw” the players’ bodies and how they applied their techniques to get a result with these athletes. I learned how I could sometime accomplish the same goal with a different technique. And I learned how to support the work of others in the field when my skill set was limited but the collaboration would create a synergistic result. I also volunteered to provide treatments with the current team Massage Therapist, so I could learn from her.

Right place, right time: I was lucky in that the current Massage Therapist with the team was changing careers and just a few days after I graduated, the athletic trainer contacted me to let me know they were very happy with my work as an intern and invited me to work with the Rapids. Wow, I was blown away. It was my Dream Job and I continued to work with the Rapids for the next 12 season. I was so lucky to be able to treat the same athletes multiple times a week. I could evaluate which modality worked best and provided the fastest result. And I learned to collaborate with other medical professionals to keep our athletes healthy and avoiding injuries. Because that’s what it’s really all about…helping others feel great and performing their best. I eventually became the Massage Therapist with the most years working with professional soccer players in the US. Like I said, a dream come true!

David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After leaving the corporate world, I searched for a career where I could really help people. I considered Physical Therapy but I was searching at a time when colleges were converting into Masters’ Programs so the prerequisites were constantly changing….and my undergraduate classes were 7 years old and many would no longer “count.”

I was going thru an emotional time and had a Massage Therapist friend work with me. I was amazed at her knowledge of the body and how effective the treatment was for me. I started looking into local massage therapy programs and found that the Boulder College of Massage Therapy had a 1 year, full-time program which was very analytically-based and focused heavily on anatomy. I signed up right away.

I dove in deeply, studying everything I could to learn about how the body works and moves. I took internships with physical therapists, chiropractors, CU sports teams, and athletes. I LOVED it.

Fast forward a few years after I graduated, and I found a niche to help athletes perform better and to assist injured clients in healing faster. I opened my private practice in 1999, always having a few other independent Massage Therapists as part of my team, and then I incorporated in 2005 with Boulder Therapeutics, Inc. Having so much experience working with the Colorado Rapids professional soccer team, I wanted to create a space that supported athletes and injured clients.

Today, we have 2 offices (Boulder & Superior) and we provide a collaborative, synergistic-style of working. We currently have 12 therapists providing the following services:

-Sports Massage
-Deep Tissue Massage
-Injury Rehab
-Sports/Injury Specialists
-Sports Acupuncture
-Wellness Acupuncture
-Dry Needling

We thrive on helping people perform better, recover from injuries and educate our clients so they’re empowered to make healthier decisions and avoid injuries. We’re proud of the fact that we’ve been able to help so many clients who have given up hope and were lost in their prior model of medicine. Our Sports/Injury Specialist treats the trickiest of injuries, those people who have been thru the system and tried healing for years without much progress, and he has a 95% success rate with those challenging injuries.

Our motto is that “We Get Results!”, and we’re blessed to be able to live up to that ideal. In an age where human touch is limited due to COVID-19, and the medical profession has numerous machines that can be hooked up to clients so multiple people can be treated at once, ultimately to save money, we’re fortunate to be able to spend 60 minutes working with our clients. We are here to help…and we care!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I like to think I’m a humble person, but as a Massage Therapist working in the medical field, my skill set was often overlooked and not seen as medically viable. Doctors, Physical Therapists and other medical professionals looked down at my profession as providing work that “felt good” but wasn’t an essential part of a treatment plan.

There was a time that I was told by my superior that they didn’t really believe in massage therapy but they new that athletes liked massage. A medical doctor once told me that it was impossible for me to work the Psoas muscle (it’s not, by the way). I was definitely the low practitioner on the medical totem pole and it took years for me to gain the confidence of those I worked with.

I did my best to swallow my pride and to continue to focus on educating my clients & athletes, since they knew the power of my work. I worked hard to get results and after many, many years, most of those practitioners eventually saw my work as important and a valued part of a medical team.

My advice is to stick with the things you believe in. Give 100% every time, be humble and focus on getting the results you know you can achieve. It’s difficult changing the minds of others, so just do your best and people will see your value.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

To succeed in the medical field, you have to get results and to be open to new information. I’ve studied with a lot of different types of practitioners over the years, because we all view the body slightly differently. And I believe that learning to assimilate information and apply it to numerous techniques gets much better results than simply following the training manual exactly. Applying the new information to what you’ve learned previously allows for you to navigate the multitude of modalities which claim to be the “holy grail” of healing. We all have something valuable to offer and often, there are many ways to help someone heal.

The interesting thing about learning new techniques is that they’re usually the ones that are top of mind and looked at as the “best” new thing out there. Be careful and really think about the knowledge you gain. It’s not uncommon to learn something new, to apply it for a long-time as the “greatest new technique” only to find out later that there were some flaws in the methodology.

I’m slow to adopt new styles of work that don’t fit within my vision of how the human body operates. I really try to understand how new techniques claim to help and then what exactly is that mechanism for change. When I train newer therapists, I sometimes stop them mid-treatment and ask the following questions.

1) “What do you feel in the area you are working?”
2) “How are you trying to facilitate a change in that area? Or what are you trying to accomplish?”
3) “Is the technique or modality you are using appropriate to make that change?”
4) “What could be causing that body imbalance?”
5) “What other techniques could you try that fit within your goals?”

When I work with Acupuncturists, Chiropractors or Physical Therapists, I’m always trying to understand what they’re trying to accomplish and to see how I can help support them with my work or how I can affect the same change in the body with what I’ve learned. I believe that you can learn so much by just staying open-minded and then digging in deep to understand the new information that’s presented to you. To my mind, that’s the key to really gaining knowledge.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bouldertherapeutics.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bouldertherapeutics/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bouldertherapeutics
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidabookire/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bouldertherapeuticsinc.5472/videos
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/boulder-therapeutics-boulder?osq=boulder+therapeutics
• Other: https://bouldertherapeutics.com/client-education/blog/

Image Credits
Nicole Bush Media https://www.nicolebushmedia.com/