Tobe Hanson is a very knowledgeable and experienced therapist but there are a couple downsides. First the good.
If you have very little self-awareness about your body and cannot really identify what issues you may be having, Tobe is great. He spends a good deal of time assessing mobility and strength in areas before beginning work (which is both good and bad depending on what kind of client you are). He will throw out a lot of anatomical and kinematic terms at you, which if you are unfamiliar with may be confusing. For me however he was essentially telling me things I already knew.
The actual hands on work he does is very targeted and based in Accupressure, which I imagine is great if you have a very specific injury or problem. He also gives some corrective exercises and stretches (photocopied from a book he wrote I believe) with instructions to follow in order to help fix whatever issue you have. So essentially this ends up being a tissue work session with a little physical therapy thrown in.
Downsides. It may be because I only went in for an initial evaluation, but the amount of assessment was too much for me, as I said before he told me things I already knew about myself (though it's something he probably needed to find out for himself). So the session I had amounted to about 15 minutes of assessment, maybe 10 minutes of actual manual work, and 5 minutes of "here's some exercises and how to do them"
If his price ($90 per half hour for non club sport) was just for a half hour of straight tissue work, it might be worth it. Even then, not really. Because the work is so targeted, he can only address so much in the period of time you have. And because of the style of work, he spends a great deal of time on a single muscle. I would liken the work to beating a muscle into submission and loosening up. He essentially jabs a muscle repeatedly until it loosens. It's very intense work and if you are unaccustomed to deep tissue work might be too much to handle.
Personally it was fine for me, just a little uncomfortable.
Also, getting an appointment with him is ridiculous sometimes. I had to book mine a month in advance, evidently he is very popular.
Now the biggest downside. Hygiene. Give what kind of work Tobe does, i'd expect him to take better care and precaution when it comes to say his nails. For my session, they were clearly not trimmed and despite all the work being done over the clothes, he actually pierced and broke skin in the area of my subscapularis and teres minor. This is a major issue for me, and given his reputation and price I would certainly expect better care. This picture was from the day after http://imgur.com/4YO6KUJ
Overall, if you spend some time on something like mobilitywod.com you can learn just as much about yourself as he can tell you (Kelly Starrett is a great resource for this kind of stuff). As well as the majority of it being free, there is a wealth of information there on self treatment and stretching that would be more valuable than a session with Tobe.
If you're an athlete looking for a "tune up" or a fuller tissue session, look up Monte Spicer of Kinetic Chain Sport (located not far from Club Sport), as he is a very experienced therapist specializing in working on athletes. His pricing is also much more reasonable (120/hour versus Tobe's 90/half hour) and you get a hell of a lot more for your dollar. read more
