Located in the historic Exchange District in Downtown Winnipeg, the North Forge Fabrication Lab is where ideas are imagined, transformed, and made real. 

The FabLab™ provides rapid prototyping services, which help lower costs and shorten the time required for Manitoba entrepreneurs to bring their vision to life. But there’s so much more!

The FabLab is SAFE Work certified and provides these cutting-edge prototyping services safely and efficiently. In addition to comprehensive video orientation training, FabLab supplies a VR safety learning experience and hands-on equipment training courses. Members can learn CAD/CAM design, CNC milling, industrial sewing, laser engraving and cutting, woodshop training, welding, and 3D printing. 

The Fabrication Lab is ready to help you create and bring your vision to the world with full support for rapid prototyping, 3D printing, embedded systems design, woodworking, metalworking, plastics forming and other creative disciplines. 

Read on to find out how Block Therapy has benefited from the capabilities and training available in the North Forge FabLab.

 Life is a precious gift – but one that can take a toll. Many of us encounter trauma or pain of some kind (emotional, mental, or physical) as we travel the road of life and grow, learn, travel, and age. And we aren’t always taught how to deal with some of these challenges. So we learn as we go, and occasionally, we need to seek out those who can help us. If we’re lucky, we find our helpers through common channels and various personal and professional networks. But the solutions to some of these situations are not so easily found. We don’t necessarily understand the root cause; try as we might. 

One of these common shared human experiences is chronic or acute physical pain. At best, it can be irritating or tiresome. At its worst, it can be debilitating and negatively impact our overall health – something we would all choose to avoid if given a chance. 

Deanna Hansen, the Founder of Fluid Isometrics and Block Therapy, and Nghia Tran, VP of Engineering for Block Therapy, know this and were kind enough to share their experience with the North Forge Fabrication Lab and the story of Block Therapy.  

The Origin of Block Therapy

One of the things that most of us don’t learn as we grow up is the importance of the fascia system in our bodies. What is it, and is it important?

‘Fascia is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fibre and muscle in place. The tissue does more than provide internal structure; the fascia has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as skin. When stressed, it tightens up.

Although fascia looks like one sheet of tissue, it’s actually made up of multiple layers with liquid in between called hyaluronan. It’s designed to stretch as you move. But there are certain things that cause the fascia to thicken and become sticky. When it dries up and tightens around muscles, it can limit mobility and cause painful knots to develop.’ (source)

Deanna explained the origins of Block Therapy through her own experience: “Back in 2000, I started developing a therapeutic technique that I term Fluid Isometrics. And I began using this technique on my own body – and I started teaching therapists this technique, but it was always my intention to teach people self-care.” “About 12 years ago, I found that after working on patients all day, my hands and body were tired. So every week, I would have a yoga instructor come and do a restorative yoga class with me. So in this one particular class, I was in a sideline twist. As she put me over a bolster, she cautioned me to be careful.” “Then,” Deanna continued, “I happened to see the rectangular wooden block I used for Iyengar yoga nearby.” “And I said, ‘you know what, I want to lie on that instead.’ And so I did. And at that moment, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can use my body weight and gravity and move my body on this piece of wood.’ “However, the edges were a bit sharp. I needed to make it more comfortable.” “One of my teachers was also a woodworker, and over about two years, we came up with the size and shape of the blocks we use today.” 

And Block Therapy was born. 

The Goals

With this discovery, Deanna realized that she’d hit upon something effective that could make a real difference for people suffering from muscular discomfort, pain, or fatigue. And as an Athletic Therapist, she saw a need (and a viable solution). And she wanted to help. Deanna explained: “The goal was to teach people how to self-care.” “It was 22 years ago when this full understanding first came to my awareness. And it’s been a process of evolution ever since. But it started with an anxiety attack.” Deanna continued: “I was struggling with my size and shape; I was 50 pounds overweight, and I had anxiety, depression, and a lot of physical pain. And amidst the anxiety attack, I realized that I wasn’t breathing properly and had many fascial adhesions in my body due to unconscious posture and breathing habits, and of course, aging.” “Through that process, I started to understand the fascial system, which Block Therapy addresses. It’s an amazing system in the body that we are just beginning to appreciate. 

How Does Block Therapy Work? 

So now we understand the role of the fascia in our bodies, but is there more to it?

Deanna explained: “it comes down to tissue temperature, alignment, and cell positioning.” “And we should be breathing with our diaphragm because we can feed every single cell in the body with blood and oxygen and pull away the byproducts of toxins.” “The diaphragm is the muscle at the ribcage’s base, designed to move up and down like a pump. Unfortunately, we don’t learn proper diaphragmatic breathing, and we tend to hold our breath reactively due to pain, fear and stress over time. Over time this creates a weak diaphragm. The weight of the ribcage, the head, the shoulders, and the arms create this weight on the body, and we end up collapsing into the core. So we hamper the ability of the diaphragm muscle to function accordingly. When we breathe diaphragmatically, we feed the body up to six times the oxygen.” Deanna continued: “if we deprive the body of oxygen for five minutes, we die. So to feed the body optimally with oxygen is a complete game changer. It can change how we view pain, aging, and disease.” 

The FabLab has Capabilities Not Found Elsewhere!

As we spoke more about his experience with the FabLab, Nghia only expressed one regret: “I wish I’d known about it sooner! I’ve learned so much and wish I’d known sooner because I’d have gained even more knowledge.” “I was impressed with the available equipment and technology.”

Nghia also found great value in the available training, as he explained: “the training has been unbelievable, and I don’t think I could go into a community college or another facility and get the laser training that I received.” “I’m getting trained on the CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) mill, which will be another game changer for Block Therapy.” “Also, as an engineer, I want to create more products. And having that under my belt is going to be huge. So the training is a great benefit.”

There are several additional benefits to this level of local support and manufacturing, as Deanna explained: “Initially, we were making our blocks in a garage from cedar. And the process was amazing for a Winnipeg-based company. But as we grew, we realized that was no longer suitable. So our next step was to go into China, create blocks from bamboo, and deal with an amazing company we found.” “But eventually, we had some shipping challenges, which caused additional stress and frustration. What initially seemed like an answer we could rely upon quickly became more difficult. We didn’t have many things under our control.” “So when Nghia connected with the FabLab and started to make everything from there with these valuable resources, we felt a tremendous sense of calm and peace.” “And to bring this production back to Winnipeg, and to know what we’re doing and not have all of these other issues have been wonderful.”   

They’ve also found it gratifying to bring production back to Winnipeg. Nghia added, “I think it’s awesome that we can have jobs here and produce the blocks locally.” 

What’s on the Horizon for Block Therapy?

The partnership with the North Forge FabLab has opened up new possibilities for Block Therapy, which Deanna spoke about: “We have so many new programs. One of the things we will be doing is focusing on Block Therapy for kids. “We wanted to launch this a long time ago. But because of the shipping issues from China, we couldn’t get the smaller blocks that we wanted – so now we can get on this right away.” “And we don’t have to order thousands at a time; we can start with a couple hundred and see how things go. So it creates this opportunity to be more flexible; so many new things are coming in 2023.” Nghia added, “And you know, it’s all possible because of North Forge.” 

Next Steps:

If you’d like to know more about Block Therapy, fascia decompression, or their many self-care programs, Deanna and Nghia invite you to visit Block Therapy’s website: https://blocktherapy.com/.

Do you have a business idea that you’d like to discuss? Tell us about your vision, and let’s meet to chat about it!