Inspiring Conversations with Dr. Shawn Daniel of The Mobile Athlete

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Shawn Daniel.

Hi Dr. Daniel, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Even before I began graduate school, I had a desire to start my own practice. But, as most new PTs do, when I graduated with my Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Georgia State University, I immediately went to work for a large national PT company. I didn’t have the courage to step out on my own.

I spent the next several years in numerous physical therapy settings and stayed frustrated. None of these settings satisfied my calling, my passion, nor my desire to see healthcare delivered in a way I felt like it should be.

Every time I complained about my job, my wife would remind me of my desire to start my own business. But with two small kids, I was too fearful to take the risk. What if I fail? What if we don’t make as much money? What if…? These questions haunted me until I finally reached my breaking point during the height of a COVID surge.

I finally got the push I needed when, one day I was working out at the gym and a friend asked if I would be willing to treat her for a sports related low back injury.  She didn’t know that my business was in its infancy.  I didn’t have a name and I didn’t have an office, but I had a skill set and a desire to help athletes move from pain to peak performance.   So we scheduled a time for me to come to her home and treat her.

The appointment went great, and she asked me how much it cost…lacking confidence, I told her the amount, and she asked if I took AMEX. I quickly said, YES! I nervously swiped her card and vividly remember seeing the amount confirmed. This was the first time anyone had ever paid me directly for PT services. IT WAS AMAZING!

I left that encounter elated. I knew at that point I was ready to start.

The beginning months were a slow burn. As a clinician, you aren’t taught the mechanics of running a business. Every task is new. And Every decision was time-consuming. I began as a mobile physical therapy provider in August 2021, treating athletes where they lived, worked, or played.

Since I was primarily treating gym based Athlete’s I decided on the name, ‘The Mobile Athlete’. This name was born out of multiple thoughts – I was a mobile service, I am an athlete, I was treating athletes, and I wanted to make athletes more mobile.

This was birthed from a philosophy that I believe everybody is an Athlete – if you have a body, you are an Athlete – everyone is on their own health journey and it doesn’t matter if you are a professional athlete or an adult, just trying to keep up with their kids we all want to move and feel our best. The way we do this is through moving better, for longer. So ‘The Mobile Athlete Physical Therapy + Performance’ was born.

Staying mobile was tough, and finding a physical location was a top priority. I transitioned to treating athletes in my own home gym until I was able to secure a treatment room inside of a local CrossFit box.

We (my wife and I) were able to grow a small practice out of that small 10×10 room – people got amazing results, started hitting new PRs in the gym, feeling better than ever, avoiding surgery, and doing things they haven’t been able to do in years.

Needless to say, word spread fast, and my schedule filled up to a three-month waiting list, and we quickly outgrew the small 10×10 office.

After a 12-month-long search, we finally landed a stand-alone location in Peachtree City, GA. We were able to complete the buildout in the stand alone location with treatment rooms, a fully operational gym in a setting that is about 1200 sqft. We did all of this just before welcoming our 3rd child in June and opened the doors for athlete care in July 2023.

Since then, we were able to hire a Client Experience Manager, an additional full-time Doctor of Physical Therapy, and a Clinical Strength Coach.

We offer multiple services – Physical Therapy, Group Based Physical Therapy/Clinical Strength Classes, Personal Training, and Remote Coaching for Athletes who pursue physical therapy from afar.

Our team is growing. We feel like we are already bursting at the seams and need another location.

We treat motivated movers – people who are motivated to get better and do not want a cookie-cutter approach. They want healthcare on their terms and are very fitness-minded.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I believe we are very fortunate. We have worked hard. And we have been helped and encouraged by others along the way.  We have made steady progress but nothing about the process has been easy.

The biggest challenges we face are staff and space – we need more staff, and we need more space.

We looked for 12 months before we found a space that matched our vision, budget, and desired location. We looked at six different locations over that time frame that all either fell through or were out of the budget. We felt trapped and unable to grow in the subleased office space.

Once the new location was secured, we ran into permitting issues, supply issues, and equipment issues.

My then-pregnant wife, two kids, myself (and some help from friends and family along the way)  renovated the current space on our own. Painting, building and installing cabinets, putting in shelves, installing equipment, etc. … you name it, we did it all. It was exhausting.

Our first physical therapist took us 12 months to hire. (Shameless plug: We’d like to hire for another full-time PT if you know anyone.)  It is challenging to find high-quality clinicians.

As you know, we’re big fans of The Mobile Athlete. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
The Mobile Athlete is your non-so-typical physical therapy practice helping motivated movers (YOU!) live active and pain-free lives.  We get athletes back to the sports and activities they love without surgery, without stopping activities, without relying on pain medicine.

We believe Movement is Medicine. We believe if you have a body, YOU are an athlete, and you should be able to enjoy life to the fullest. Whether it is getting back to running after an old knee injury or chronic low back pain that just won’t go away, we can help. Life is too short to avoid doing the things you love.

At The Mobile Athlete, our Doctors of Physical Therapy (DPT) are movement experts. We provide one-on-one, personalized care that moves you from basic rehab to peak performance.

We spend a full 60 minutes with every athlete, every time, always with a DPT – never with someone else, never with someone who lacks formal training. Athletes are seen at their appointment time, on time, every time. There aren’t any chairs in our clinic because we don’t have a waiting room – people are seen at their appointment time every time.

When we perform an evaluation, we seek to know the Athlete more fully by discovering their goals and their ‘Why’. The first hour we spend with a patient in an evaluation is not only discovering their WHY but also evaluating their movement from head to toe to determine where their movement limitations are (99% of the things we see/treat are movement-related issues – meaning the Athlete lacks mobility or stability and now has an injury as a result.). From there, we will immediately begin working on eliminating their pain, get to the root cause of their pain/limitation, and then develop a customized plan for them that gets them back to crushing their goals.

We are problem solvers. We specialize in musculoskeletal pain, injuries, and limitations, and we help Athletes improve their performance in their sport. We are fitness-forward clinicians, meaning we are going to do strength and conditioning work programmed/coached by your DPT. We work with people from all walks of life, backgrounds, sports, and jobs. If you are motivated and want to move better, we can get you there.

Other clinics lack transparency and fitness-forward solutions. Having worked in the corporate PT realm, I have seen firsthand how expensive, frustrating, and time-consuming it is to go to other PT clinics. Travel to and fro the clinic multiple times per week, long wait times; no one knows what it will cost only to find a huge bill months later, seen at the same time as 3-5 other patients under the supervision of 1 therapist and most often by a tech., someone who has no formal training, performing things that they could quite honestly Google and done at home on their own. Terrible experience.

On the other hand, we offer a customized solution to every athlete that is both in-person and digital.
We work 1-1 with every athlete for 60 minutes every time.
Every appointment is always with their DPT.
Patients have direct access to their DPT.
We get to the root cause, solve the problem, and teach how to keep it from coming back for good.
We offer full transparency of cost.

I am most proud of our quality of care and the way we educate and empower our Athletes. We want them to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible. We want them to know how to bulletproof their bodies for life.

We want people to know they are NOT frail; they are NOT broken. We want people to know they are strong and can be made stronger. They do not have to be dependent on the mainstream medical system. To invest in their health, they can and should rely on their DPT. They do NOT have to go to their MD first nor every time when they experience physical pain or limitation. They do NOT need to rely on imagining X-rays and MRIs for every pain and limitation. They can typically solve their problem much faster, far cheaper, and far healthier by working with us.

We offer the following:
In-person PT services
Digital PT services (telehealth and coaching)
Group-based PT/clinical strength training classes
Remote coaching and fitness programming
Team/corporate education and movement seminars
Corporate PT services and coaching services

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
There will continue to be a need for high-level PT while there will still be a large deficit in the quality of care between the current medical system and the one we are forging. We will see more and more people start their own PT practices as they continue to get burned out on the way they are treated by big corporations (overworked and underpaid). This is why we are committed to helping change that. We are creating rock star job opportunities for people to have flexibility of schedule, excellent pay, and work in a fun/welcoming/empowering environment. We are pushing our team to be the best in their desired focus (vocation-specific) while supporting and empowering them to do so.

I also see an even greater need for healthcare and the demand for services like those we offer growing in popularity and demand. When people can get what they want, when they want it, how they want it – people will pay for that…especially when they are investing in their greatest asset – their body.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://themobileathlete.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themobileathlete.pt/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMobileAthlete.PT/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-shawn-daniel-pt-dpt/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcJAxnVkS5hTE5DGUZ9vE7A