We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lauren Shelton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lauren below.
Alright, Lauren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear stories from your time in school/training/etc.
In Physical Therapy school, I got voted “most likely to NOT work as a PT…” which I think says a lot about me. I loved class and I excelled in school, but I had issues with the traditional healthcare system. It was so reactive in nature- always waiting to do something until AFTER people had pain or got injured. I remember being in my clinical rotations my last year before graduation and thinking to myself, “I absolutely love the field of physical therapy, but this clinic lifestyle is not for me.” Typical PT clinics see multiple patients an hour with loads of paperwork and little to no time for critical thinking. I knew that wasn’t going to cut it, because I had a desire to help patients make true lifestyle changes.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
After completing my Doctorate in Physical Therapy, I went on to do an orthopedic residency at Mayo Clinic Florida. Upon graduating I began to combine my love for yoga with my knowledge of the body through teaching at local Yoga Teacher Trainings. It was during this time that I began to exclusively treat patients who had pain related to yoga, and eventually I realized I needed to be helping them BEFORE they came to me with pain. That’s when Stability Flow was born. I use my knowledge as a Physical Therapist to create flows that prevent common yoga injuries and pain.
Stability Flow is based around 4 main principles:
1. Core to Extremity- We focus on connection with the core, finding a pelvic neutral position, and learning how proximal stability leads to better mobility elsewhere.
2. Active Over Passive- Instead of spending time in static stretches that can cause damage to individuals with hypermobility, we perform active mobility to gain control through a joint’s full range of motion.
3. Strategic Strengthening- The muscles of the posterior chain (the backside of the body) are nearly untrained in yoga. This leads to many muscle imbalances that can cause various injuries. By using weights, the muscles of the posterior chain are targeted and strengthened appropriately.
4. Functional Movement- We perform motions like a “Hinge” instead of a “Forward Fold,” and “Squat” instead of “Chair Pose” because these motions are essential in everyday life and feel easier on our bodies.
I am so proud of Stability Flow because it truly accomplishes my goal of PROACTIVE health. When we are strong and stable, we feel better and move without pain.
Join the SF membership by going to StabilityFlow.com and clicking “Join Now.” Can’t wait to see you on the mat!
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Succeeding in any field is hard, but I think the health industry can feel SO saturated with other success stories that you think there is no way you can be one of them. One of the most helpful things I do is mute people on social media who are successfully doing something similar to me. This really helps me prevent imposter syndrome. I stop looking at their posts and thinking “I’ll never be successful like them” or “My membership will never have as many members as theirs does,” and instead focus on what I DO know and how I can grow. I think everyone has imposter syndrome at some point, but you have to put that aside and tell yourself that you’ll learn and grow to become the expert you know you can be.
If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?
This is an incredibly hard question because I often think it is crazy I spent 8 years of college to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy, only to decide that the health industry is awful and runs off of people who seem to have no work-life balance! But then I realize that there would truly be no way I could create Stability Flow without the knowledge I have from being a PT. I did personal training prior to PT school, and there’s genuinely no realm where I would have had the ability to create something that I thought could help people more than any other online class. I think PT is unique in that many decide to become an entrepreneur. The only thing I would change is learning more about marketing and business during my undergraduate studies. But hey, that’s what YouTube is for, right?!
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Image Credits
Lauren Vied Allen