Work hard, play hard

​It’s apparent within minutes of meeting Hannah Clark that she has a burning desire to succeed by working and playing hard. She enjoys her work with the USFS, sometimes 10 to 14-hour shifts, climbing, hiking, scrambling around mountains marking timber and gathering data. When at home, she is planting, painting, demoing, or building around her property. When at play, she enjoys hunting, biking, rafting, yoga, running, and skiing.

When Hannah incurred a severe back injury in 2014, that led to a lumbar discectomy due to muscle loss in her leg, she was eager to get back to her active lifestyle.  Unfortunately, at the beginning of her healing process, she faced insurance claim denials and slow healing. These challenges led to protective maladaptive patterns; movement impairments—pain avoidance behavior.

A year after the surgery, Hannah was still struggling with returning to her pre-injury state.  She decided to look for a new Physical Therapist (PT) and chose Alpine Physical Therapy (Alpine PT) because she heard, "they do PT different”. At Alpine PT Hannah began to understand her body and her pain, she began to overcome deep seated maladaptive movement patterns which reduced her pain.  She was told to relax, even slouch, and noted her muscle spasms and pain decreased when she followed this instruction. With the help of her PT, Sam Schmidt, MPT, at Alpine, Hannah learned how to trust her body again, how to control her body, and ultimately got her life back through movement.

Hannah is now stationed in some of the burliest mountains in Alaska, navigating remote terrain in harsh weather, and doing it without pain or fear (unless the brown bears are interested in her....).  Hannah is a fine example of how movement and understanding pain can help heal and regain life.  Thanks, Alpine PT and Sam!

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