Ryan Lee Manista

Hello everyone, my name is Ryan Manista. ㅤ

Since 2004, the 7th grade for me, I've been on a journey to find the best ways to improve my health and athleticism.

This all started when I joined the Wickliffe Middle School Wrestling team and started to make more conscious choices about my nutrition as I was an overweight and pudgy kid.ㅤ ㅤ

Athleticism never came easy for me.ㅤ ㅤ

I played sports at Wickliffe High School, but I didn't play much as a starter because my athletic ability wasn't as good as the rest of the kids on the team. ㅤ ㅤ

I was one of the hardest workers on the team when it came to working out and doing what my coaches told me to do, but it wasn't good enough for me to perform at a high enough level. ㅤ

Being in pain as a high school athlete limited me as well and my pain all started when I joined the Wickliffe High School football workout program in 2008 going into my Junior year.

Unknowingly at the time, we focused on high-risk lifts such as deadlifts, back squats, and power cleans, coupled with body-building style lifts, plyometrics, stretching, and lots of running. ㅤ ㅤ

I became stronger at lifting weights through the process, but I didn't become a better athlete or develop the ability to run faster.

In 2010, I graduated high school and was In college.

I stopped playing sports because I simply could not compete.ㅤ

I tried out for the Lakeland Community College baseball team, but the coaches weren't impressed and my chances for playing time were absolutely zero.

I opted to continue my bodybuilding and powerlifting style workouts because that's all I knew.

In 2012, I discovered the practice of yoga and quickly fell in love with the practice because I felt yoga gave me some benefits of muscle recovery and feeling peaceful. ㅤ

Yoga became my passion and obsession for 6 years and I was a successful yoga teacher with my classes slowly becoming increasingly popular at a yoga studio in Painesville, Ohio.

In 2015, I joined the Physical Therapist Assistant Program at Kent State Ashtabula to further my knowledge and skills as a health professional.

During this time, however, my lower back pain kept becoming worse and worse, along with a handful of other injuries I would sustain, such as dislocating my kneecap while running.

I didn't know what was happening to me at that time or why I would plateau with my physique goals or experience consistent pain and injuries.

I had to keep looking for the next best thing to help myself and others get out of pain and improve their health.

In 2016, I discovered Functional Patterns while I was in the middle of the PTA program at Kent State Ashtabula.

Functional Patterns quickly humbled me and started teaching me how to assess my body and health in an objective manner by using photos and slow-motion videos to analyze my biomechanics.

As I learned more from FP, I realized how antiquated and limited the physical therapy field is when it comes to root cause problem solving for the human body.

I was learning the same educational material in my PTA program that they were teaching students 30 years ago.

In this process, I slowly discovered how my weightlifting and yoga practice kept recreating my injuries over and over again.

I would use FP to alleviate my pain, then go back to yoga and weight training and get injured again.

A consistent cycle on repeat for many months, until I decided I didn't want to be in pain anymore.

In 2017, despite yoga still being my passion, I decided to take a break from yoga for a while and solely focus on doing Functional Patterns to correct my dysfunctions and imbalances.

I haven't had the urge to go back to yoga ever since.ㅤ

I worked in the medical field as a physical therapist assistant from 2018 until 2021.

I worked in outpatient and inpatient settings, working with older adults in wheelchairs who have mental disabilities, all the way to the average person capable of driving to and from visits.

In 2021, I stepped away from the physical therapy field because I had the opportunity to train clients just using Functional Patterns protocols at a local gym in Willoughby, Ohio.

In the same year, I completed my Human Biomechanics Specialist Level 1 course with Functional Patterns taught by Naudi Aguilar.

I'm in the best shape of my life, even as I age into my thirties because of FP.

My pain is slowly less and less every year and I'm getting at the root cause of my movement and pain problems each and every day.

I enjoy training my clients and helping them solve their own issues with pain and movement imbalances.

There's no better purpose, that I can think of, than helping to alleviate the suffering in another person's lifeㅤ

FP has given me the best mindset and tools, so far, to help me complete my mission in helping the people around me become more functional and pain free.

Functional Patterns can be an uncomfortable process to learn, un-learn and start over again when it comes to improving your health, wellness and fitness.

My advice for anyone new to Functional Patterns, is you have to be open minded to the idea that you have been doing things wrong and incorrectly the majority of your life.

Just like I had to start over, in my own life, as an avid Yogi and medical professional.

Everything from my athletic endeavors in school, to my yoga teacher training and even my college career as a PTA, it all fell short on how to actually nurture my body in a regenerative manner.

Credentialism is still based on learning antiquated systems that are good at making profit and not necessarily good at helping people solve their health issues at the root causes.

If you’re trying to determine who can help you with any of your health issues in life, see who can show objective before and after results on themselves with their own body and with the bodies of their clients.