.png)
I developed incredible strength and conditioning in my late 20’s! I worked hard to maintain a high level of fitness playing Rugby in college and being in ROTC. During my military career, I maintained a higher level of fitness than was required to pass my physical fitness test, and I was practicing martial arts daily.
I knew the power in being strong and having an endless ‘tank’ on the field of play, and I refused to settle for average performance - in sports or my everyday life.
I was training martial arts or lifting weights 2-3 times a day, 5-6 days a week. It was a pretty aggressive training schedule. By this point, I had already become a fitness/strength coach and knew the dangers of over training and neglecting maintenance/prehab work. At the time, I ‘thought’ I was doing enough for injury prevention.
About 3 years into this training regimen and 1 year into being a certified coach, I went to a 2-day kettlebell certification. After hours of swinging kettlebells and a grueling, 10-min fitness test, my back was feeling weird. So of course, I did what any reasonable person would do - I stretched it out.
I remember lying down and expertly doing all the typical back exercises and stretches physical therapist give you for back pain…but…
The stretching and back exercises made it worse. My back locked up so badly that I couldn’t move.
I can’t begin to tell you the feeling of helplessness that I had.
Not to mention the embarrassment of needing help for every movement, and the shame of being a knowledgeable and ‘enlightened’ coach, but not seeing an injury on the horizon FOR MY OWN SELF.
I ended up being in intense pain and barely able to move (I couldn’t even tie my shoes!) for 10 months. I tried physical therapy exercises, chiropractic, massage therapy, stretch therapy – none of it helped.
And to add insult to injury, at that time, my specialities as a coach were youth sports performance, fat loss, and post-rehab.
If you can imagine…
I was embarrassed to have injured myself so badly without ever seeing it coming.
I was embarrassed to not be able to demonstrate because of pain and lost mobility.
And I was embarrassed to have gained 80lbs during my injury period.
Me after winning a No-Gi BJJ tournament and getting to meet my hero, Cris Cyborg!
After 8 months of being in pain, and unable to lift weights, or train martial arts, or do any of my normal daily activities without excruciating pain…I was getting desperate.
I had tried EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING, but was no better off for it.
And that’s when I randomly met a Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT) Specialist.
MAT sounded weird, but I had tried EVERYTHING else already, what did I have to lose? So, I started seeing her twice a week.
After a month, I could tie my shoe again and sleep fully through the night. CRAZY!
By the end of 2nd month, I was no longer in pain and had full use of my body again. I was finally BACK!
I can’t begin to explain to you how excited I was to feel normal again!
But…
Why did it take trying so many therapies and exercises before I finally found something that could help me?
I was super curious about MAT and why it was the only thing that truly made me whole again.
But I didn't have the chance to immediately explore my curiosity because I immediately had to focus on a different problem to solve.
I wanted to get back in the gym and back to training - back to my active, high performance life. But I kept re-injuring myself!
It would be about another year before I found the answer to that problem, and learned to train with a ‘rehab-focus’, to prepare myself to eventually train with a ‘performance-focus’ as I had done pre-injury.
But by then, I was weak, out of shape, overweight, and frustrated by having to piece together the answer on my own.
Fast-Forward 3 frustrating years…
I ended up going back to school and becoming an MAT specialist myself. I attached myself to MAT and Resistance Training Specialist (RTS) mentors to help me better understand biomechanics and strength progressions for both rehab and performance.
I worked hard at school and spent every moment I could learning first hand from my mentors.
I was determined to find answers. Not just for myself, but also for my clients who had also tried everything and anything themselves to overcome their injuries.
Almost 5 years following my devastating (and unexpected) back injury, it finally all became so clear how I hurt my back and why I kept re-injuring myself.
It also became very clear to me how my injury could have been PREVENTED, if I had known how to recognize the problems while they were still small.
It was also at this point, that I learned about “The Gap.”
After talking to many physical therapists and strength coaches during my time in school about my back injury experience, they told me that I was stuck in “The Gap.”
They explained that it is the place where you are beyond what therapy typically addresses (even if you still have pain or physical issues), but your body is not ready to take the stress of traditional strength training (even if strength is what you really need!).
Typically, someone specializes in one side of “The Gap” or the other – either therapy OR strength.
But not "The Gap" itself.
I decided that I wanted to be the kind of rehab specialist who took responsibility for “The Gap” itself.
And...
That I wanted to be the kind of strength coach who could 'intentionally' trains her athletes and clients for high performance, while keep them AWAY from "The Gap"
My mentor, Tony, performing MAT on a client as we talked about “The Gap”
The agreement that I make with every client is: “Be willing to do the work and have faith that I will get you there.”
When I injured myself, I wondered why none of my coaches had said anything to me about how I could be potentially hurting myself with my poor training.
Also, why couldn’t anyone help me once I was hurt.
I was stuck and in pain.
It took me years to realize that my coaches said nothing because they didn’t know or recognize that something was wrong.
And that therapists couldn’t help me because what I needed was beyond what they were trained to offer.
My deepest wish as your partner in your journey, is to be the specialist that I wish I would have had myself going through my journey....
For both performance.
And for rehab.
