When I was growing up, I LOVED adventure. Running and riding bikes on the trails through the woods behind the hundred-year-old Minnesota farmhouse I grew up in, chasing my Dad on my tiny cross-country skis as he trained for the famous Birkebeiner race, and riding horses with my Mom gave way to competitive running, skiing, ultimate frisbee, and cycling pursuits in my high school and college years, and voraciously climbing the high mountains of Colorado as soon as I was old enough to leave home. 

 

 

But I was ALWAYS getting injured. Having to sit out of high school cross-country races because of severe shin splints, stress fractures, and knee pain, spending many of my formative years in physical therapy, ending so many of my mountain adventures in tears through my early 20's because my legs were in so much pain. I couldn't understand it. 

 

 

Sometime in my college years, I finally ended up being evaluated by three separate orthopedic surgeons. "Miserable malalignment syndrome" was my diagnosis. Each of them said some version of "you shouldn't do endurance sports at all, and definitely not running!" 

 

 

I was crushed. To me, that sounded like a death sentence. In simple terms, miserable malalignment syndrome is what they call it when your upper legs and your lower legs rotate at opposing angles, putting a huge amount of stress on the joints of your lower body, especially your knees, and also the tendons and muscles that attach to them. It's a structural problem, due to the angles at which my femurs come out of my hip joints. 

 

After being told there was nothing I could do, I dove into a deep depression and gained a bunch of weight. I truly thought my days of being an endurance enthusiast were over.

 

I decided to throw myself into rock climbing, which wasn't as hard on my joints. I enjoyed it, and it provided a new outlet for me to experience the outdoors which I loved so much. But my mindset, my body image, and my self-esteem were in the gutter. 

 

Finally choosing to focus on intellectual pursuits rather than athletic pursuits, I decided to become a physical therapist so that I could help others work with the bodies they've got to improve their physical function and consequently their lives.

 

While I was pursuing my doctoral degree, a strange and wonderful thing happened: I started to learn about functional alignment and motor control. I learned that while we can't control how our body is structured, we can work around that and greatly improve our function by learning how to control our muscle activation and our movement patterns. And if we work to strengthen and mobilize our bodies in those healthy movement patterns, and get ourselves moving in optimal alignment, we can exponentially increase what we are able to do with our bodies. 

 

 

Fast forward over 12 years...  filled with education, personal experience, invaluable mentorship under the direction of experts in sports medicine physical therapy, sports psychology, mind-body integration, yoga therapy, energy medicine, and athletic coaching, and diving into my own evolving practice as a physical therapist and performance coach... 

 

...to today. 

 

I've been a professional mountain bike athlete for the past nine years, netting over 25 career wins and podium finishes in multiple disciplines. I've planned and completed six expedition-scale adventure projects around the globe; combining bikepacking, mountain biking, mountain running, backcountry skiing, mountaineering, and packrafting. In 2019 I broke the women's record in the 750 mile Arizona Trail Race, a self-supported bikepacking and hiking traverse from Mexico to Utah. A few weeks ago I ran a nearly 40 mile backcountry traverse across the Sierra Nevada mountains over three days. 

 

The reason I'm telling you this is to show you where I came from and what's possible. The 23 year old me who stubbornly dragged myself up and down mountains literally crying in pain, hating my body and wondering constantly if I should quit NEVER would have believed any of this was possible for myself. The now 37 year old me often has tears of gratitude for my strong, healthy body and what it's capable of in the outdoors. There is no feeling in the world like reaching the other side of an entire mountain range and saying to myself,

"I ran here. And I feel great."

 

 

I helped myself for sure, but I began this journey in the first place to help others. Integrating all that I've learned and combining body and mind, science and soul; in the past 12 years I've coached thousands of people through their own journeys from pain and injury to optimal performance, to high levels of competition, and to fulfilling their own personal dreams of having a bold and adventurous lifestyle. 

 

My passion and my life's mission is to meet people exactly where they're at, helping them work with their bodies and minds to become their best versions of themselves in their outdoor pursuits and in their lives. I'm still learning every day, developing and curating new practices to help us all achieve our goals. What I know to be true is this:

 

 

Whether you're a recreational adventurer or a competitor, whether you've struggled with pain or injury or you just want to avoid that in the future; whatever your age, your body type, or your perceived limitations, it is possible for you to feel strong, limber, confident, and capable in your body -- your permanent home in this lifetime. 

 

I'm so excited to share my foundational principles with you, to help you start off on the right foot in creating your own personal success story. I'm not special -- I'm a normal everyday midwestern farm girl with miserable malalignment syndrome and big dreams. If I can learn to create an inspiring, adventurous, active life, so can you. 

 

That theme is alignment. 

Great question. This course isn't meant to replace anything you're already doing and loving. It's not intended to be a new workout program. Although I will be teaching you some of my favorite strength, balance, and mobility exercises in order to facilitate progression, in this course you'll have the opportunity to bring your personal favorites into the mix. In my weekly live Q&A, I'll help you integrate the foundational skills into anything you're already doing to make your favorite workouts even MORE effective, make your training or your performance even MORE efficient and powerful, and give you an even better chance of preventing injuries. 

If you learn these foundations, you will be set up to apply them to any movement-related activity you ever do for the rest of your life. They are literally life-changing principles. I've taught these skills to thousands of people from age 7 to 107 (yep that's right), who use them for a variety of different purposes. 

And the coolest thing? You don't have to find a bunch of extra time in your day to spend doing new exercises. You don't need to go to the gym, and you don't need any special equipment. You can practice these foundations when you're brushing your teeth, reaching into a cupboard, getting off the toilet, walking up the stairs, picking up the laundry, lying in bed. I do them every time I walk my dog or go on a bike ride. In fact, I'm practicing them right now as I sit here typing this. You get the idea.

Fortunately, I've taught these techniques to literally thousands of people over the past 12 years, and I know they are easily taught in a group setting both in-person and online. All you'll need is a phone, tablet, or computer, a space to move, and an internet connection. Ideally you'll have a Facebook account so you can join our private Facebook group which is where the live calls will be held and posted.

I love groups for a few reasons: One, they're affordable. Much more so than 1:1 coaching. Two, I can have a MUCH bigger impact teaching to many people at once than to only one person at a time. I want to change as many people's lives as possible through movement and adventure, and teaching these foundational skills in a group setting is a great way for me to do that. And Three, we all learn from each other's inquiries. Chances are if one of you has a question or is being challenged by something others are as well, so when I address one person's question it usually helps the whole group.

Each week on Monday, I'll be posting the core teachings for the week on our course platform, which will be a series of short pre-recorded videos. You'll watch them and do as I do. You'll practice the foundations, the progressions, and the functional integrations in your own lives, right there at home (or on your favorite trails). 

Then, each week on Thursday, I'll go live in our private Facebook group and answer all of your questions. If you're not able to make it live, you can post your questions in the group ahead of time and then you can watch the replay for my answers. 

If I'm inspired by additional teachings throughout the week that I originally didn't post on Monday, I might just create additional videos and post them as well. My intent is to make the teachings bite-sized and time-sensitive, to give you the biggest bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time. I know y'all are busy, and I don't want time to be a deterrent. 

That's also why you'll have lifetime access to this course: if you feel like you're not able to get as much as you like out of it the first time, or if you need to review anything, you can always go back for reference. 

**If you ask me something that I don't know, or that I'm not satisfied I can answer to the best of my ability without first checking out the most current research on the topic or tapping into the expertise of my mentors, I will look into it and get back to you via video in the group so everyone can learn from what I learn. I know a lot, but I certainly don't know everything! If what you're asking is far beyond my scope, I'll point you in the best direction to get the support you need. If what you need is within my scope, but is well beyond the scope of this foundational course or very personal/private, let's chat about setting up a 1:1 session via Zoom video.**

**Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that although I am a physical therapist, this foundational movement course does NOT take the place of physical therapy treatment or medical advice. If you have any concerns about your medical condition before or during the course, please contact me privately and/or consult your physician.**