.png)
Did you know we love local businesses? Between sponsors, in-kind donors, promoters, and friends, local businesses make YPWA as much as we like to feature and promote them!
Promoting events, menu updates, and stopping in gives you a limited peek into their world. We'd love to provide you with more of a sneak peek into the wonderful people behind the businesses we work with, volunteer with, and generally love to love on.
Our first business is Clash Physical Therapy! We have our first March in-person event with them next week, so it's a perfect time to meet the team! Hot tip: they share what y'all can expect out of the upcoming event at the end of this post.
Meet Ashlyn and Sarah!
Sarah Clayton is a physical therapist, certified strength and conditioning coach, barefoot training specialist, and pelvic health specialist. Ashlyn Tersigni is a physical therapist assistant, certified strength coach, barefoot training specialist, chronic pain specialist, and pelvic health specialist. They have both made it their mission to help people optimize their health and function through a holistic mind-body centered approach. No system in the body functions alone and it is through coaching people on how to take control of this that they are able to help them get life long results. Ashlyn and Sarah want to empower people that they are in control of their outcomes regardless of genetics, health history, or current circumstances. Most people just need someone who cares to guide them to their goal.
Let's get into it: spill your local go-tos
Favorite place to grab a coffee/tea: Acoustic Java
Favorite place to treat yo self: Revived Athlete Recovery
Take us to school
What drove your interest in health and therapy? We both had experiences where we personally needed PT and saw how it helped friends/family recover from serious illnesses. The more we learned about health and wellness the more we wanted to help people understand that they are powerful and resilient.
Tell us about a stand-out entry-level job/position that drew you to your PT work (or business) approach. We both worked in insurance based clinics for a number of years and realized the model was not conducive to providing the highest level of care to our patients. We saw that there was a disconnect in the education between health professionals and their patients, which was impacting their ability to have positive outcomes. This drove us to realize if we wanted to help people the way we desired we would have to create a totally different model for physical therapy. Thus, Clash was born.
Bridging the pelvic floor knowledge gap
How did your experiences play a part in your pelvic health specialization? As women we were part of conversations with friends and family members who would talk about personal struggles with pelvic health, whether that was surrounding their experience with pregnancy, postpartum, or even years later regarding aging or menopause. Women were being told things that were incorrect surrounding limitations during pregnancy, what to expect regarding pelvic floor function with aging, and if there was anything they could do about it. They were being led to believe they were fragile, had to accept certain negative changes with pregnancy or aging, and that essentially these things were inevitable. We realized that we were in a unique position to help. We took a deep dive into pelvic floor therapy and it was a great marriage with our existing foot/ankle specialty as these areas are more connected than people realize!
Bring us into your (day to day) world!
What's the most challenging part about your work? The most challenging part of our work at Clash is trying to help someone who has had significant medical trauma, multiple bad experiences with different types of healthcare providers, and/or previous unsuccessful experiences at other physical therapy clinics. In the same way bad experiences affect your development into adulthood, bad experiences in healthcare can affect your ability to respond to treatment interventions. However, Clash specializes in helping people with this background when they are at the end of their ropes and don't feel like anyone cares. While this is the most challenging part of our work it is also the most rewarding and we are committed to helping people recover from these experiences.
After a long work week, how do you de-stress or unwind? Taking a walk or jog in nature with our dogs, cooking dinner with our significant others, generally taking time to unplug.
Okay give us this scoop!
What can people expect from the pelvic floor workshop? They can expect to learn about how symptoms that are common are NOT normal. Pelvic floor dysfunction CAN be addressed and you can regain quality of life. How the body is connected-some injuries or pain issues could be related to your pelvic floor dysfunction. Simple exercises that connect foot to core to optimize your function during real life demands.
Thank you so much, Ashlyn and Sarah, we are looking forward to hanging out next week! While we will be focusing on pelvic floor health, definitely consider giving Clash a follow on IG or Facebook to stay in the know and pick up even more tips.