Velizar Hristov has been a physiotherapist and kinesitherapist for many years. He, together with his girlfriend Mihaela Parvanova, who are graduates of the National Sports Academy (NSA) "Vasil Levski", have dedicated themselves to caring for people and saving them from pain. Both started their careers as athletes and later became specialists in physiotherapy and kinesitherapy. Belizar fell in love with the profession later, as an injury forced him to give up the sport, while Michaela is still an active athlete today. Here is what Belizar shared with us about the beginning, difficulties, methods and dreams
Why did you decide to do physiotherapy and kinesitherapy? How did it all start?
- Curiosity and my desire to be better have always been at the heart of my decisions. I have been actively practicing football since early childhood. I'm not sure if a lot of training and a lack of knowledge about the recovery and prevention processes led to the point where my body just couldn't take the strain. Of course, I do not rule out the possibility that I was not into this sport. I ended up quitting football because of an injury that no one could understand and help me with. I visited doctors, therapists and traditional healers all over the country. The team where I ended my football career seemed to like me and decided to keep me as a massage therapist, as I already had licenses for different types of massages and showed interest in them. All this happened thanks to Georgi Ivanov, who currently takes care of the most elite boxers in Bulgaria. And it was here that I had the ambition to learn how to help football players with injuries, and not just rehabilitate them with massages. The other main person in my development as a physiotherapist is my friend Michaela, with whom we are currently working and developing Academica Physio together. She is still an active soccer player, and then a student of Kinesitherapy. Reading her textbooks and notes, I made the spontaneous decision to enroll in my second higher education and venture into a completely new but close field. My first higher education is Football Coach. Thus began my parallel development in two different but very related professions - football coach and physiotherapist.
What is/was the hardest?
I think when one does something with desire, it doesn't seem so difficult. Of course, I had great difficulties while studying and working at the same time, because I did not want to sacrifice either football or physiotherapy. I didn't have any financial difficulties thanks to my parents. On the contrary, they made my life easy in those years and created all the prerequisites for my rapid development. I appreciate it and would do the same for my kids in time. And now it is. I currently enjoy both of my professions and consider myself lucky to be able to work on them at the same time.
What kind of people are looking for your help? Only athletes or regular people and is there an age limit? Who is not recommended?
- All people come to us. We do not claim to be experts in a given field. Yes, our deep connections with many sports and clubs make us popular among athletes, but they have friends and relatives who are outside of sports and also suffer from various problems. Together with Michaela, we try to look at the person as a whole. We don't christen them with the epithets "sore knee" or "shoulder". We study and develop many holistic practices and therapies to look holistically at a given manifestation of the human body. It is for this reason that small children and elderly people often come to us.
Which parts of the body do you treat? And what diseases?
- We try not to treat certain parts of the body, but the whole body. The local manifestation of pain is only an indication of an existing problem. We direct a huge part of our energy in the correct diagnosis. Only in this way will we reach the results expected by us and by our patients. If your knee, shoulder, lower back, back hurts, we will treat these areas, but we will look for the causes of pain and discomfort in other places as well. If you have a muscle strain, we will control the inflammatory process and see if it is caused by dysbalnas along any of the adjacent muscle-tendon or myofascial chains. In short, we treat all musculoskeletal problems related to muscles, tendons and joints. We perform rehabilitation after operations on knees, ankles, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, etc. We change people's bad habits related to bad posture, immobility, etc.
Tell more about the work process itself and what technique you use
- It is extremely important for us to get to know the problem well. We question, analyze with the patient and direct him to events and moments that would give more clarity to us and to him. That's how we start every time. We then do a number of tests to further guide us all to the nature of the problem. And this search process continues throughout the rehabilitation program, every day. During each subsequent procedure with a patient, we continue to question, test and direct their attention in a certain direction. In this way, he will share with us details that he has neglected, which will be useful for us. We use standard and alternative therapies. We have the full range of PREMIUM Physiotherapy equipment from the world leader BTL. Each piece of equipment is high-tech and found in the best sports and rehabilitation centers around the world. I recently did a combined internship at the Spanish giants Atlético Madrid. I spent some time there being part of the training process for all the sidelines and the men's and women's representative teams. I was also part of the rehabilitation team, which took care of the recovery and prevention of all football players on a daily basis. They are equipped with this equipment, and at the moment we even surpass them in terms of the number of therapies, but this is dictated by the fact that they have focused their attention on football players, and we allocate resources to all other people. In addition to advanced physiotherapy, we apply many manual techniques and techniques. We use the full arsenal of Kinesitherapy. Also, our daily life is filled with the use of Conesiotaping as a method of diagnosis, treatment and prevention. We apply alternative practices such as Bowen Therapy and others. The person is important to us. Looking at it individually in a holistic aspect. We choose the combination of therapies to administer to him and are not afraid to change our approaches in pursuit of his he alth.
What will be the next step from now on?
- We have no sick ambitions. We are not capitalists. We don't see people as bills. I have never seen a physiotherapist with an expensive jeep. That's why we don't make big future plans. We strive to constantly become better. As specialists and as people. Everyday we meet people with different stories. Based on them, we build a treatment methodology. It's almost always different, but our principles are the same.
What are your recommendations for people to avoid injuries?
- We would recommend people to pay more attention to themselves. Since we know this is not easily achieved, we have another strategy. We advise them to pay more attention to their loved ones. We know that everyone is concerned about their loved ones, and that is why we hope that this trait of ours will be useful to us as well. In our opinion, prevention is an unknown word and we try to engage the attention of our patients with it. We work with several children's and youth football schools and our main role is to inculcate in the young footballers habits that will help them to be he althy throughout their active career. And because we know that not everything is easy to achieve in sports, it happens that they come to us with various injuries and complaints. We advise them to seek the opinion of specialists and try to tell the whole truth. Every detail can help the therapist. Don't underestimate the details. Pay attention to yourself and loved ones and do not wait for problems to appear and deepen. Solve them in time.
What was your childhood dream?
- I'm not sure that my childhood dreams overlap with my current dreams. I believe that every person goes through different stages in their life and always dreams of something different. Then I dreamed and knew that I would become a great football player. I imagined myself playing in different teams until I got to my beloved Liverpool and stayed there for the rest of my career and beyond. Now I dream of achieving the same, but as a trainer or physiotherapist. Unfortunately or not, I still can't decide which I love more.
