John Howick is the clinic owner and a licensed physiotherapist who has been practicing since 1989. He opened Kamloops Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Centre in 1996, beginning as a small, one-physiotherapist clinic and helping shape it into the team-based practice it is today.
A major career highlight for John was earning his Diploma of Advanced Manual and Manipulative Physiotherapy. That commitment to ongoing learning has continued throughout his career and has influenced the way he leads, mentors, and practises. He enjoys sharing his focus on professionalism, quality care, and clinical growth with the people who make up the Kamloops Physiotherapy team.
John especially enjoys working through the puzzle each patient brings into the clinic. He takes time to listen closely, understand the person’s story, and help reduce fear around pain or movement. His experience with complex cases and widespread symptoms helps him identify what matters most, what can wait, and what path of care is likely to be most useful.
His treatment approach is thorough and adaptive. John has studied many physiotherapy approaches over the years, allowing him to draw from different techniques and styles of rehabilitation depending on the patient’s needs. He is especially comfortable treating challenging neck and back pain, using a combination of manual therapy, needling, education, and exercise to help people move forward.
John’s appointments are careful, practical, and responsive. He assesses closely, reassesses often, and works to help people feel less threatened by their symptoms, more mobile, and clearer about what to do next.
Areas of focus
- Manual therapy
- Neck pain
- Back pain
- Complex or widespread symptoms
- Needling
- Exercise therapy
- Patient education
- Mentorship
Qualifications
- Diploma of Advanced Manual and Manipulative Physiotherapy
- Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Manual and Musculoskeletal Physiotherapists (FCAMPT)
- Certified Gunn Intramuscular Stimulation (CGIMS)
- Certificate of the Acupuncture Foundation of Canada Institute (CAFCI)
- Connect Therapy / Thoracic Ring Approach Part 4
Book online with John
John is part of the Physiotherapy discipline. Learn more about their services and appointment availability below.
Approach to care
John’s care is built around detailed assessment and ongoing reassessment. He believes good care depends on understanding the full picture: the patient’s symptoms, their story, their goals, and how their body responds as treatment progresses.
His approach is hands-on, practical, and flexible. Depending on what the patient needs, John may use manual therapy, needling, education, exercise, or a combination of approaches within the same session. The goal is not to apply one fixed method, but to choose the right tools for the person in front of him that day.
John also places a strong emphasis on reducing fear. Pain can make people feel guarded, uncertain, or disconnected from what their body can still do. By helping patients understand their symptoms and gently explore movement, he works to make the path forward feel more manageable.
Quick tip
If you are in pain, gently and slowly explore movement. Breathe, relax, and see how much your body will allow you to do.
Outside the clinic
Away from the clinic, John is usually moving. He enjoys walking, running, biking, skiing, and canoeing. When he is indoors, he plays guitar or bass.
He also has a long-running personal connection to physiotherapy assessment: in university, his own leg misalignment made him a regular teaching example. It gave him an early, memorable introduction to the kind of movement details he would later spend his career assessing. This also highlighted that, with proper conditioning and pacing, even people with “less than perfect” anatomy can be very active and live life to the fullest doing what they love.
