Patient Power: A Trainer’s Therapeutic Inventions Strike Gold

After working 11 years as a strength trainer and rehab specialist helping hundreds of patients, Gabriel Burrell thought he had seen it all. Then, one day, he says, ”I met a patient with the worst shoulders I had ever seen. He was a 6-foot-2, full-grown, 220-pound man, and he could not even shoulder-press five pounds over his head.”

The patient, we’ll call him Dave, “blew out both shoulders playing football when he was 10 years old, and he never got any help,” Burrell says. “His shoulders were wrecked.” Also, Dave’s work as an attorney led to spending long hours hunched over a computer at his desk.

Dave’s problems were so severe that Burrell dug out an experimental prototype device he had made at home. To help patients practice healthy posture, he tied two stretch bands to loop around the anterior shoulders and connect to a center-back brace. Burrell had tossed the gadget aside years earlier because he couldn’t resolve a sticking point in the design. But, hoping the gadget might help Dave, he dug it out from under his laundry basket and gave it to him, with instructions to wear it for 30 to 40 minutes periodically throughout the day. He also continued to train Dave three days a week.

A few weeks later, “he came to me and said, ‘My shoulders feel better than they’ve ever felt in my life. You’ve got to get this thing on the market!’”

Burrell refused. “I’m glad I could help you, but this is a passion project. I’m happy with training and don’t need anything more from life.” But Dave kept insisting. “He would literally harass me,” Burrell says. “Then, one day, something clicked in my head.” A solution for the sticking point dawned on him, and he became excited about bringing the device to market. “It must have been the Good Lord saying, ‘Now is the time. Do this!’” Burrell shares.

That marked the birth of Posture Medic, but Burrell’s path wasn’t easy. Distributors initially refused to carry the device, and naysayers predicted Burrell wouldn’t be able to patent it. Nevertheless, the product’s debut at the 2012 Parker Seminars Las Vegas convention was described by one veteran distributor as the most successful launch he had seen in 30 years in the business.

Burrell has since secured 15 patents on Posture Medic and licenses to sell it in several European countries. His nagging patient, Dave, has made amazing progress and is stronger than ever. Burrell is president of a successful company, PrimeKinetix of Searcy, Ark., marketing various posture training, back therapy, and massage devices for chiropractors and their patients.

Posture Medic is designed to stretch the chest and anterior shoulder muscles and strengthen weak upper back muscles so they can hold the shoulders in place. The device comes in 10 sizes and two strength levels for athletes and non-athletes. Another PrimeKinetix invention, also hatched by Burrell while working with patients, is MyoBalls, a massage product that wraps extremities in a compression band lined with massage balls. The balls stretch and loosen tight muscles as they are rolled over pain points and provide helpful therapy for plantar fasciitis, tight shin or calf muscles, carpal tunnel strain, and tennis or golfer’s elbow.

Burrell designed another product, the PCore lower back brace, to improve on conventional back braces by offering both hot or cold therapy and flexible or semi-rigid support. The PCore can be fitted with tourmaline pads to continuously warm the back via reflected body heat or ice packs for cold therapy. It also has removable semi-rigid panels for added back support if needed.

Chiro1Source proudly offers chiropractors a “buy 10, get two free” starter kit package deal” on PrimeKinetix’s Posture Medic, MyoBalls, and PCore products at a 50% discount. This includes point-of-purchase displays, brochures, and posters.

For Burrell, PrimeKinetix is amplifying his ability to help patients, and he is grateful for the company’s success. “Over the past 20 years, all I’ve done is engage with the human body and do my best to help it. It’s been an amazing journey,” he says. “We are so thankful.”

Chiro1Source offers convenient starter packages for all PrimeKinetix brand products – click here to learn more!