I had numerous winters with 100 plus days on my snowboard without a second thought about what it meant to actually be in shape, and the power of injury prevention through taking preemptive measures. I was young and stupid – still am actually!

That all began to change about 3 years ago when I first seriously hurt myself. The ol “wrap a leg around a pole” trick. I learned about the wonders of physiotherapy, and that brought me back to snowboarding at an equal or higher level then before – perfect right?

Fast forward to early summer 2018 when I tore a ligament in my knee. All I could think about was how I completely blew it for the upcoming winter. Whenever I got injured, I was diligent about doing my physiotherapy to recover. As soon as I was back on my feet, my wonderful physiotherapist Sarah felt like it was time to take things up a notch (scroll up to read her 2 cents on Ascension). She told me about this guy who could help me with my recovery AND help get into better shape to prevent getting injured in the future. That’s when Ian at Ascension came into the picture. On top of that, he’s an avid snowboarder that understood my passion and what I wanted to get out of my time in the gym.

Honestly, after the first session I was like “f*ck, what did I get myself into”. Ian will kick your ass. Sometimes it will hurt and suck, but the reward is worth it. I learned better ways to stretch and to roll out. I learned how to go to any gym and help myself feel better. The Ascension app is really cool and helpful. We worked together the end of summer and throughout the fall. Ian worked with me to help deal with my torn ligament as well as the long-term effects of my leg break from years ago.

I am an action sports athlete and high level skier. Injuries are an expectation and rehab is an important part of functioning at a high level, in the sports that I like to do. After suffering a grade 2 MCL injury in 2015, I went the usual route of physiotherapy. Just like the many times before (same experience with different injuries) I had become frustrated. Standard operating procedure for physio therapists seems to be; set you up with ice and an E-Stim machine for 30 mins, then give you exercises to do on  antiquated equipment while they set-up other patients on E-Stim machines, providing you with little to no feedback on your movements.

With lingering knee pain, I expressed my frustration and Ian told me to come into the gym. He gave me exercises to do and would watch and correct poor movements. I quickly saw improvements in my knee function and in a short while dropped all of the weight I had put on while injured!

Fast forward to December 30^th, 2016, I had fully ruptured my Achilles tendon. It is supposed to be a 6-9 month recovery time to a full return to sports. Again, working with Ian at Ascension Fitness I had full clearance from my surgeon at the 5.5 month mark! The cherry on top was being able to come back strong and with full confidence, so that when I was skiing in Chile 9 months after the injury I was able to charge!