The part after the surgeon signs you off
A biokinetics practice on Kellner Street in Westdene. We take referrals from surgeons, GPs and physiotherapists across Bloemfontein and the Free State, and hand you back when the joint works.
Book an assessmentExercise is the prescription
Biokinetics is the clinical end of exercise — a registered profession, claimable off most medical aids, and always dosed to a measurement. Nobody trains at Kern until we know what the joint can actually do.
Chronic disease
Hypertension, type 2 diabetes and post-cardiac-event programmes, dosed off a submaximal test and re-tested every eight weeks so the numbers move with you.
After the operation
ACL and meniscus, rotator cuff, hip and knee replacements, spinal fusions. We work off the surgeon’s own protocol and send a written progress note back at week six.
Testing, then training
Range, strength, balance and a full postural screen before anything is loaded. You leave the first hour with the numbers printed out, not with a workout.
Return to sport
Hop and limb-symmetry testing for the rugby, netball and athletics cases, and the clearance letter your coach and your surgeon both want to see before you play.
Older adults
Balance, bone loading and getting off the floor again. Small groups on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and a home programme that needs no equipment at all.
Back to work
Functional capacity evaluations for employers and RAF claims, plus graded return-to-duty programmes for shift workers, drivers and mine staff.
What the first hour looks like
A real first assessment in the Westdene rooms, cut to nine minutes and filmed with the patient’s permission. A goniometer, a tape measure, a plinth and a lot of questions.
The rooms, and what the kit is for
We started in a borrowed gym at Universitas
Kern began in 2013 in a corner of the physiotherapy gym at Universitas, two afternoons a week, because the orthopaedic firms had nowhere to send people once the physio was finished with them. Marlise took the referrals that fell through that gap. By 2016 there were enough of them to justify a lease, and the practice has been on Kellner Street ever since.
Every programme here starts with a test rather than a workout, and that is not a slogan — it is the whole difference between biokinetics and a gym. We measure the range, the strength, the balance and the difference between your two sides, we write the numbers down, and the programme is built to move those numbers. Eight weeks later we run the same tests. If nothing has shifted, the programme was wrong and we change it, which is a great deal easier to admit when there is a printout on the desk.
Who you will actually see
Qualified at UFS in 2009 and HPCSA-registered since. Started the practice in the Universitas gym and still takes the post-operative knees herself, most of them out of the Rosepark and Mediclinic firms.
Runs the hop testing and handles the rugby and athletics referrals. Played senior club at Shimlas until a hamstring made the argument for him, which he says is the most useful qualification he has.
Came down from a cardiac rehab unit in Pretoria in 2019. Takes the hypertension and diabetes programmes and does all the submaximal testing, and will phone your GP herself if a reading looks wrong.
Takes the Tuesday and Thursday groups and most of the low back referrals. Taught school PE in Botshabelo for eleven years, so nobody in the room gets away with a half repetition.
A joint left alone for six weeks takes twelve to come back
Start on TuesdayBook the first hour
27 Kellner Street, Westdene, Bloemfontein. Mon–Thu 07:00–17:00, Fri 07:00–13:00. We bill Discovery, Bonitas, Momentum and GEMS directly. 051 447 2094 · WhatsApp 082 613 5507