Our Story
Why Painkiller School Exists
Most people treat strength training like a retirement fund, something to start when they have more time, more money, more reason to care. We watched our own parents slow down because of that "someday," not from age, but from never having built the body to carry it. We've each had pain ourselves, and Dr. Kivi taught us out of it. The lesson we wish someone had given us at 25: strength training isn't a "later" thing. It's a NOW thing, for the body you'll have at 40, 60, 80. Painkiller School exists so you don't learn that the hard way.
Instructor
Meet Dr. Kivi
Dr. Kivi is the teaching voice and creator of Painkiller School, on a mission to make rigorous movement science accessible to everyday people. Every piece of content is reviewed by a medical specialist before publication. Dr. Kivi believes that the people who benefit most from understanding pain are the ones who live with it every day, and that knowledge, not just compliance, is the foundation of lasting change.
Dr. Kivi developed the Painkiller School protocol drawing on the Biopsychosocial Model of pain (which recognizes that chronic pain is shaped by physical, psychological, and social factors, not tissue damage alone) and Pain Neuroscience Education as developed by researchers Lorimer Moseley and David Butler, whose work reframes chronic pain as a nervous system output rather than a structural injury signal. The practical result is a self-directed exercise protocol that teaches people to build the specific muscle capacity their bodies lack, while progressively retraining the nervous system away from protective pain patterns. Painkiller School's goal is a client who understands their own body well enough that they no longer need ongoing provider dependence to manage their pain.