Grant Fedoruk, the founder and CEO of Leading Edge Physiotherapy, has a unique perspective that he infuses into every moment of every day. From state-of-the-art clinics in Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Spruce Grove, Calgary, Okotoks and Kelowna, teams of physiotherapists uphold Fedoruk’s driving mission: Life Shouldn’t Hurt™.
It started in 2008 when Fedoruk’s life was at a crossroads.
“I don’t know if ‘inspiration’ or ‘kick in the teeth’ is the better term for what got things going,” he laughs. “My wife, Heidi, is also a physiotherapist. We were both balancing demanding careers, working long hours in two different locations each. My father was in palliative care and Heidi was pregnant with our first child. But at that time, along with business partner, Anita Cassidy, we felt that physio could be done differently – far less transactional. We sought to create a space where clinicians could be brilliant and human, where laughter was part of the ‘medicine’ and where people loved to come to work. We knew if we invested in amazing locations, amazing people and great technology, healing would be the natural result.”
With that in mind, they acquired a small five-bed clinic in the back of a Sturgeon County Athletic Club.
“I didn’t come up with company the name” Fedoruk says. “The first place we owned was already called Leading Edge. None of us loved that name, but we decided to embrace it and live up to the title.”
The start was challenging. While building the business, Fedoruk worked simultaneously until 2010 with another employer. When he went fully into entrepreneurship, he cemented that decision by opening a second location. A year after that, baby number two arrived.
“So, fast forward to 2011,” Fedoruk continues. “Heidi is holding our newborn baby, we have our three-year-old in tow and we have just opened a second location. That is how we showed up to launch our child advocacy and marathon fundraising event, RunWild.”
RunWild would host more than 1,200 runners in its inaugural year, and over 3,000 in 2026.
“Every single time I get to see a little one cross the finish line at our RunWild event and see Heidi giving all the racers high fives – those moments can’t be replaced. Some of those kids have run in our event since they were four years old, and now they are in the half marathons.”
Things did not slow down. If anything, the pace picked up. In 2012, Leading Edge’s newly expanded St. Albert location opened, and this was also the year the clinic introduced the region’s first aquatic therapy pool into private practice.
“This,” Fedoruk says dryly, “was not on paper a good business idea, but we did it anyway.”
People were telling him it couldn’t be done. Fedoruk was pretty sure it could be done and he was going to have fun trying (to prove everyone wrong).
He explains, “‘Let’s put a pool inside’ sounded insane for the size of our company and for the logistics and costs. So, we went ahead and put a pool in the ground in a field and then built a clinic on top of that. Since then, we’ve built two more; one that we dropped into a parkade and one that we put into a surgical centre. That was a big deal because we put it into an older building. Never tell me something can’t be done because I’ll move mountains to prove that wrong and I’ll have fun doing it!”
Leading Edge also introduced Canada’s first TRV chair. A gamechanger for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo care, the TRV is especially beneficial for patients who are elderly, disabled or have neck limitations. It offers a comfortable alternative to traditional bedside testing while enhancing maneuvers like Epley and Semont with added kinetic energy. For anyone suffering from vertigo, the TRV chair helps restore normality and functionality.
He says, “We can make an impact on lives by investing in technology and not putting the bottom line first. Therapy pools are not economically phenomenal; we may never see an ROI. But why shouldn’t the average person, not just professional athletes, have access to this? For the patients whose problems we solve, it’s a good investment. The return isn’t always dollars. Sometimes it’s ‘sense.’”
Focusing on the human element like this is how he leads in every aspect of the business, even when the focus becomes (at a much later date, looking back) comical.
One such day came on a chilly Christmas Eve. Fedoruk was launching a new clinic on January 2, but on December 24, the gas went out in the building.
“That day, everything that could possibly go wrong went very wrong. There was me, making a run to every Walmart in Edmonton on Christmas Eve for space heaters. I said we would open on January 2nd, and I was determined to open on January 2nd. Not because of payments or profit, but because I made that promise to my clients.”
Yes, they opened on January 2nd.
“We take healing seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” he says. “I also don’t worry about somebody copying the corporate culture that we are known for, because they would need a strand of DNA, not just from me, but from every single one of our amazing team ’cause they’re the ones that make this magic happen.”
For the patients, the difference Leading Edge makes in and out of the clinic is lifechanging.
“They say things like, ‘it’s a feeling I get when I walk through the door. I didn’t know physio could feel like this,’” says Fedoruk. “When I hear a patient say that, that’s one of the biggest compliments I could ever get. It’s literally feeling supported, safe, comfortable enough to smile, laugh, cry… all of those things. You need that environment in order to heal. My patients often wonder whether they’re in a physio clinic or neighbourhood coffee shop. This is why I still personally treat patients every Wednesday morning. It’s never felt like work to me, ever.”
“I make mistakes,” he is very quick to point out, before joking, “I’ve got $1M MBA in how not to run a business, how not to do marketing and how not to do all kinds of things. But, you know, in making those mistakes, I’ve been able to figure out a lot. My ability to see and admit my failures is part of how I lead by example. Leadership must be demonstrated.”
Leading Edge is well-known for its unique clinics and team, but for the Fedoruks, what really matters is how much the company empowers community building. From day one, Leading Edge has been about giving back. In 2018, the company had reached $1M in charitable donations – and they were just warming up.
“We launched the Edmonton Gives charity initiative in 2022 and expanded it as we opened our first Calgary practice in 2023, reaching $2 million in charitable donations that same year. This momentum continued into 2024 as we opened our first British Columbia clinic—which has since grown to five locations—and took our Life Shouldn’t Hurt radio show from Edmonton’s 880 CHED to a national audience on the Corus Radio Network. By 2025, our dedication to giving back resulted in over $1 million donated in a single year, bringing our cumulative charitable contributions to over $3 million.”
In addition to its signature RunWild fundraising marathon event, which is now in its 15th year, Leading Edge is proud to support over 45 local organizations including:
- Zebra Child and Youth Advocacy Centre: Supported through proceeds from RunWild.
- Kids Kottage: Beneficiary of the Edmonton Comedy Festival events and Edmonton Gives.
- Strathcona Community Hospital Foundation: Supported through ongoing golf event sponsorships.
- Special Olympics Alberta: Sponsored through local community golf events.
- 630 CHED Santas Anonymous: Supported via their annual golf tournament.
- Centre for Family Literacy: Beneficiary of an annual May evening event.
- I Challenge Diabetes: The primary cause supported by Leading Edge’s annual Paddle Battle pickleball tournament.
- University of Alberta Physiotherapy and Kinesiology Students: Provide development and training for over 40 students, with some of our team serving as clinical lecturers and via their Leading Edge Scholar Program.
- Local School Sports Medicine Programs: Sponsor program development in local high schools and frequently speak to classes.
- CashMob St. Albert: An in-house initiative that rallies shoppers to inject economic stimulus into independent small businesses.
- Leading Edge Pickleball Courts: A community partnership with the City of Leduc and Leduc County that provides 12 free outdoor courts for public use.
Fedoruk says, “Here’s the thing. Every charity we support lets us create impact way beyond our clinic walls. We can help one person at a time in treatment when they come through our doors, but when we give to these powerful local organisations, we can help to heal entire communities. At Leading Edge, that feels pretty close to sacred. That’s how we scale our impact in the world. One of our salaried employees is the Director of Giving. That is how important giving back is to us.”
For nearly 20 years, Leading Edge has been helping, healing and giving back. This dedication has not gone unnoticed. Among many awards that Fedoruk has accepted on behalf of his teams, awards such as Business in Edmonton Leaders, a very special recognition came in 2023 when Grant and Heidi were granted the Queen’s Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal. This medal recognizes Albertans who have made substantial contributions to the province. Another highlight for Fedoruk was the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce community impact award.
As he looks back on a life well lived and the future ahead where he gets to keep making an impact, Fedoruk says, “I’ve been surrounded by some of the most brilliant business people in Canada, many right here in Edmonton. My business knowledge and the successes I’ve had are really owed to the amazing people who are willing to share their advice over coffee or at the side of a treatment bed. There are too many people to name, but I know they read this magazine and know who they are, and I’d love them all to know how big of an impact their ideas and their contributions have made to me and to Leading Edge.
“Of course there’s my wife, family, partners and those employees in this business who’ve unconditionally believed in what we’re building together. Also, how we grow, who we are – it’s all been built on the shoulders of every patient whose trust we have earned. So, we have to keep fixing those shoulders. If there was one message that I could get out to any patient who has come through our doors, it would be thank you for the trust you have placed in us. That’s the most important thing and we respect that in an astronomical way.”
Fedoruk concludes as he looks to the future, “The medical profession is being commoditised and corporatized. With all of my heart, I believe that’s not good for people in the long run, but the focus is becoming business and profit. I also think there’s room for private businesses like ours with the right values to resist that trend. People keep asking me how many clinics are enough. I think it’s the wrong question. It’s never been about how many clinics we have, it’s really about how many people we get to help. So, we will just keep growing and bringing our small community spirit to every new clinic we open, inspire our staff and empower them to treat people that there are our neighbours until we end up with the first clinic on Mars.”
Keep an eye out locally (and in the cosmos) for Leading Edge’s next community and clinic impact.
1. Working with a patient on one of Leading Edge’s 15 Alter-G Zero Gravity Treadmills
2. Recording Life Shouldn’t Hurt which airs on the Corus Radio Network across Canada
3. One of the many donations to over 45 charities Leading Edge supports – this one went to the Zebra Child and Youth Advocacy Centre
4. 2026 University of Alberta commencement speech
5. RunWild was founded by and is brought to you by the partners, employees, families, friends and volunteers of Leading Edge Physiotherapy
6. Grant sitting in the TRV Chair – two exist in Canada and both are offered by Leading Edge Physiotherapy
I have attached one more of the entire team Professional team at our annual summit in Jasper Alberta – it really captures our team and how we don’t just work together!