Why I Started The Movement Clinic

From Dr. Onergis Martinez, PT, DPT

Most people start a clinic to scale what works.
I started The Movement Clinic to challenge what doesn’t.
This wasn’t a business decision. This was personal.

The spark started in 2017 — the year my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
I had just graduated high school. My future felt wide open. I’d enrolled in the Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) program, driven by a passion for health, but still unsure of what that path would demand of me.

My dad was strong. Healthy by most accounts. Only 50 years old. He was the kind of man who grilled on Sundays, cracked terrible jokes at family dinners, and worked hard without complaint. When we got the diagnosis, we were stunned. But we were hopeful — trusting the system and the plan laid out for us.

He started chemotherapy — aggressive, grueling rounds that weakened his body but never his spirit. He endured surgery. Feeding tubes. Weight loss. Pain. And still, he fought through it all.

In July 2018, we were told the cancer had spread. His intestines were obstructed. No more food. No more treatment. Just time.
We lost him that September — less than a year after his diagnosis.

And I couldn’t accept it.

I stayed up at night replaying every decision. I wrestled with guilt, with grief, with the feeling that we had missed something.

That grief cracked something open in me.
Not just pain — purpose.

I considered walking away from physical therapy altogether and researched other paths, but nothing brought me closer to the front lines of prevention than physical therapy done right — not just chasing pain, but helping people rebuild from the inside out.

So I stayed.
I became a licensed PTA.
I worked in skilled nursing facilities and home health, mostly with older adults. I saw firsthand how movement sparked life — how people came alive again when they started to move with intention, strength, and purpose.

But I also saw the system’s limits.
Efficient? Maybe.
Effective? Not really.
People were surviving — but they weren’t thriving.

I knew I needed to do more.

So I returned to school. I earned my doctorate. And I started The Movement Clinic.

Not to scale what already exists — but to build what should.

To challenge assumptions.
To teach what’s true.
To guide people back to ownership — of their movement, their health, and their future.

Because here’s the truth:
Most of the problems we face today — inflammation, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, cognitive decline — aren’t random. They’re signals. They’re the result of how we live.
And that means we can change them.

I don’t believe the answer is more passive healthcare.
I believe the answer is active ownership — building a life rooted in the inputs the body actually needs such as: nutrient-dense food, quality sleep, intentional movement, sunlight, stress management, and meaningful connection.

We were designed to heal.
But we’ve built lifestyles that block that healing.

Now, as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, I don’t just help people move better.
I help them live better. With strength. With clarity. With purpose.

This isn’t the kind of physical therapy you’ve experienced before.

This is PT redefined.
This is The Movement Clinic.