Physica Medica's group seminars are an extension of the clinical care model, not a separate product. Small, focused sessions where Dr. Maks and the Physica Medica team work through real topics — movement mechanics, injury prevention, chronic pain management — with the same specificity you'd expect in a one-on-one session.
These aren't wellness workshops. Each seminar is built around a clinical topic with practical application — the kind of education that changes how you move, manage pain, or approach recovery.
Past and planned topics include movement mechanics and load management, injury prevention for runners and overhead athletes, understanding fascia and why it matters for chronic tightness, managing persistent pain without relying on passive treatment, and breathwork fundamentals as a tool for nervous system regulation and recovery.
Topics are chosen based on what comes up repeatedly in clinical practice — the questions patients ask in sessions, the gaps that slow recovery, the concepts that take ten minutes to explain but change everything once they click.
Every seminar is small by design. The goal is a room where questions get real answers, not a lecture hall.
Current patients are the primary audience. If you're mid-treatment and want to understand more about what's driving your injury or what to do between sessions, a seminar is a direct extension of your care.
They're also open to people who've been referred to Physica Medica but haven't started yet, or who are weighing whether one-on-one PT is the right next step. A seminar is a lower-stakes way to get a sense of how the clinic thinks before committing to a full assessment.
If you've been through PT before and felt like you never really understood what was wrong or why the treatment plan was what it was, these sessions are specifically useful. The clinical reasoning that guides treatment here doesn't stay in the treatment room.
Soleus and gastrocnemius trigger points referring to the heel. The actual driver of many "plantar" cases is upstream.
Tennis and golfer's elbow. Forearm trigger points that don't release with stretching alone.
Suboccipital and temporalis trigger points that drive tension-type and some migraine headaches.
Restricted fascial planes following rotator cuff, ACL, or abdominal surgery. Often deployed alongside IASTM and cupping.
The one-on-one model at Physica Medica means every session is with the same doctoral-level therapist, focused on your specific presentation. Group seminars don't replace that. They sit alongside it.
Think of a seminar as the education layer of your care. The clinical reasoning your therapist applies in a session — why a particular movement pattern is loading your tissue the wrong way, what's actually happening in a trigger point, how breathing mechanics connect to low back pain — that reasoning is what seminars make explicit and transferable.
Patients who understand their condition recover faster. That's not a marketing claim; it's a consistent pattern in practice. Seminars exist because education is part of treatment.
Needles out, the now-responsive tissue gets manual work and immediate movement re-education. This is the part that makes the result hold. Needling alone is incomplete.
Your therapist re-tests range of motion and the symptom that brought you in. You leave with a clear sense of what changed and what's next.
Sore after? Mild soreness for 24–48 hours is normal, similar to a hard workout. Bruising is uncommon but possible at deeper insertion sites. We give every patient specific aftercare guidance based on the regions treated.
Seminar dates are announced on a rolling basis. The best way to find out about the next session is to call the clinic directly at 443-228-8029 or send a message through the contact page and ask to be added to the notification list.
Our clinic sits at 800 S Bond Street in Fells Point, a short walk from Canton's main commercial strip, ten minutes from Harbor East, and easily reached from Federal Hill via Boston Street. Patients regularly travel from across the city and the broader Mid-Atlantic for dry needling specifically. The reason is straightforward: the practitioner credentials and the clinical context around the technique. Both matter more than the technique alone.
We're the only Baltimore clinic with FAAOMPT-credentialed clinicians performing dry needling. If you've had needling done elsewhere and didn't get a lasting result, the most common reason is that the underlying movement and load problems weren't addressed in the same plan. We treat the system, not the symptom.
Are the group seminars open to the public or only current patients?
Both. Current patients are the primary audience, but seminars are open to anyone who wants to attend — including people who've been referred to the clinic and are still deciding whether to book, or anyone in the Baltimore area interested in the topic. There's no requirement to be an active patient.
What topics have past seminars covered?
If a question we haven't covered is the only thing between you and booking, call us. We'll answer it.
Honest answer: yes, modest ones. Most patients experience mild soreness for 24–48 hours after a session, similar to a hard workout. Minor bruising is possible at deeper insertion sites. Rarely, patients with vasovagal sensitivity feel briefly lightheaded; we screen for this and adjust positioning. Serious adverse events (pneumothorax, infection) are uncommon and the risk is reduced by trained, anatomically precise insertion. Dry needling isn't risk-free, but the risk profile is well-characterized and much lower than the alternative of leaving chronic trigger-point pain untreated.
Coverage varies by plan. Some plans cover it as part of standard physical therapy CPT codes; others explicitly exclude it. We verify your benefits in advance and tell you what to expect before your first session. No surprise bills. Most patients pay $145–$220 per session out of pocket, with partial reimbursement common on plans with out-of-network PT benefits. We accept HSA and FSA. Call 443-228-8029 and we'll check your specific plan.
Clear contraindications: active infection at the proposed insertion site, an active bleeding disorder, and severe needle phobia. Relative contraindications that require discussion include anticoagulant therapy (warfarin, certain DOACs), pregnancy in specific regions, lymphedema in the treated limb, and certain immunocompromised states. We screen every patient before the first needling session. If dry needling isn't appropriate for your case, we'll tell you. There are usually other manual therapy options that fit.
Same needle, different framework. Dry needling is a Western neuromuscular technique targeting trigger points identified through clinical examination, with the goal of resetting muscle dysfunction. Acupuncture is a Traditional Chinese Medicine practice targeting meridian points within an energetic framework. Both can be valuable for the right person, addressing overlapping problems with different reasoning. Dry needling at Physica Medica is performed by physical therapists, integrated into a PT plan, and measured against functional outcomes.
Most patients see meaningful change within 3–6 sessions, with maintenance visits as needed for chronic or recurrent presentations. Acute trigger-point cases sometimes resolve in 1–2 sessions. Complex chronic cases involving multiple regions and movement compensations typically require 8–12 visits to durably consolidate. We tell you our honest estimate after the initial assessment and re-evaluate at the four-week mark.
The most common reason "PT didn't work" is one of three things: too-short sessions, rotating providers, or protocol-driven exercise without hands-on diagnosis. Fellowship-trained manual therapy with dry needling integrated into a 45–60 minute one-on-one session is a different intervention. We'll tell you honestly within the first session whether we think we can help your case. If not, we'll point you to the right resource.
