What started as LiquidGym Therapy and Training Centre, one Ottawa clinic, is now leading the evolution of aquatic therapy, built from real patients. Proven in Practice.
University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Heart Wise Program · Arthritis Canada, Parkinson Canada · ICEBAT 2026.
In 2008, Karen Snyder broke her leg playing hockey.
Months of land based therapy progressed slowly. Then everything changed.
She got in the water. Movement came back. Confidence came back.
What if water is not the backup plan, but the answer?
Karen was not only a patient. She was already a builder.
Years working as a builder of businesses and training programs, including the Canadian Red Cross's own Adapted Aquatics program in New Brunswick.
Karen was not alone in knowing water.
Irene Hammerich had already spent decades building her own aquatic programs.
At St. Francis Xavier University, then the North York YMCA.
Together, they brought more than forty years of combined aquatic experience to LiquidGym, which they co-founded in November 2013.
Twelve years and ten thousand patients later, that question became the method behind everything ATI does today.
Water is the great equalizer.
Standing chest deep, the body carries only twenty percent of its weight.
The water removes what land cannot.
Then it returns resistance from every direction, building strength without the impact.
This is the principle behind Functional Movement Aquatic Therapy (FMAT™), our proprietary method for guiding every patient from supported movement to full independence.
The biggest barrier to aquatic therapy was never the water. It was the assumption that you needed to own it.
Community pools. Retirement residence pools. Backyard pools. Any of them can become your clinic's water, while your brand stays exactly yours.
Our first ATI 360™ partner is starting in a community pool and is building what is set to become one of the largest rehabilitation clinics in Canada, in Toronto, Ontario, with his own facility planned within the next three years.
This is the model we built to remove the one objection that stopped every clinic before it started.
No matter what brought you here, the next step is already mapped out.
Add a new revenue line without building a pool. Aquatic Therapy Innovations (ATI 360™) gives you the training, the systems, and the launch roadmap to become a destination clinic, not just another clinic that offers aquatic therapy.
Uncertain in the water is a real feeling, and a completely fixable one. ATI Education and Certification gives you FMAT™ , the named method that moves every clinician from unsure to certified, one clearly defined stage at a time.
Move better, feel stronger, and recover with confidence, one session at a time. Water Exercise Institute (WEI™) is a guided video library, organized by condition, on your phone or on your tablet, at any pool, on your own schedule.
An eight thousand square foot facility became the laboratory.
Every stage of FMAT™, every certification, every clinical decision was pressure tested there first.
Innovation in the water was the core driver. Every protocol was built around what water could do that land never could.
A multidisciplinary team of physiotherapists, kinesiologists, and athletic therapists worked side by side.
Everything this facility proved now lives on in every clinic running the ATI™ program, every certified clinician, and every WEI™ member who uses it.
“It's not aquafit. Not at all. It's exactly the therapy I need to get me ready for my knee replacement. The videos are professionally made and easy to follow. Such a godsend.”
— Angela S., WEI Member“His physiotherapist gave him an exercise. He said, 'I can't do that.' She said, 'Let's try it, as opposed to talking about it.' That's how he learned the difference between 'I can't' and 'I won't.' Now he has taken on the mantra: 'I CAN.'”
— Robert W., Physiotherapy Patient“There are things you can do in the water that you would never attempt on land. It is not your typical rehab. Despite my disability, I keep coming back because they are my friends and help with my desire to keep moving the best I can.”
— Andrew, Patient Since 2013“I want to thank LiquidGym for being paramount in helping me to reach my very high goal. Having been an avid skier all my life, skiing is not only what I do in the winter, it's who I am.”
— Audrey, Physiotherapy PatientTwelve years of outcomes, told by the people who lived them.
Keith — as reported on the news
Every protocol and certification in the ATI™ ecosystem is overseen by Lindsay Jonkman, DPT, our Clinic Director, which means nothing reaches a clinician or a patient until it has been clinically reviewed, not just clinically inspired.
That standard carries through every recognition behind it, from a recognized presence at the 2026 ICEBAT Conference to patient outcomes featured on CBC and CTV News.
Every clinic that launches with ATI™ is already prepared for the AI supported workflows shaping where rehabilitation is headed.
That is not an accident. Irene Hammerich speaks internationally on artificial intelligence in clinical practice, and that thinking is built into the ecosystem itself.
Aquatic therapy does not stand still. Neither does ATI™.
That is the shift LiquidGym built this hub to deliver.
For the clinics that lead, the clinicians who care, and the patients who benefit.
The path is decoded. Now it is yours to choose.
