Mandie, Mitch and Kristen are physical therapists in Seattle who are passionate about getting out in the mountains and helping their community do the same.
Mandie, Mitch and Kristen are physical therapists in Seattle who are passionate about getting out in the mountains and helping their community do the same.
Born and raised on the mean streets of Baltimore Mitch grew up "riding the east" until he moved to Seattle in 2004. Mitch is a soul rider always in search of fresh lines. Mitch's side country wanderings developed into backcountry pursuits and now that he has two boys he's back to skis. Mitch has been a PT since 2004 and has owned and operated Union Physical Therapy in Seattle with his wife Elisa Owens since 2010. His passion for the outdoors has led to a focus on treating mountain athletes. Mitch has researched and developed successful injury prevention and training programs for rock climbers as well as winter athletes.
Mandie grew up in Bozeman, Montana and has a passion for backcountry skiing, ski mountaineering and skiing the lifts at her home mountain, Bridger Bowl.
Mandie enjoys working with athletes with a wide variety of endurance and mobility needs and has a drive to help people meet their individual goals. She has been a member of the US Ski Team Medical Pool since 2008. She also served as the sole PT in Antarctica at McMurdo/South Pole stations in 2009-2010. Mandie has worked in Seattle since 2005.
Kristen grew up skiing Big Mountain in Whitefish, Montana and can now be found riding Crystal Mountain or touring volcanoes and peaks around the Pacific Northwest. She has practiced PT in Seattle since 2011 with a focus on outdoor athletes. She has been involved in freeride skiing, competing and coaching on regional and national levels.
Kristen enjoys sharing her passion for the mountains and helping others make the most of the activities that they love.
Alpine Training Project (ATP) started out with Mitch, Mandie and Kristen geeking out on physical therapy as it applied to common winter sport injuries we were seeing in the clinic. We decided to look at certain movement patterns, functional strength benchmarks and mobility norms to see if we could correlate these with the most common ski and snowboard related injuries. Alpine Training Project was designed to be the gold standard for injury reduction with an ultimate goal of enhancing performance on the snow through sport-specific training. Common themes across the winter sports research tomes were dynamic knee control, muscle balance between the quadriceps and hamstrings, trunk mobility and core strength, eccentric quadriceps control and foot and ankle stability.
Our programs are designed to allow you to train with a whole season in mind while tracking your progress. We are all licensed physical therapists with backgrounds in recovery science, zone based training, squat biomechanics and the principles of physiologic adaptation. ATP is research-led with the individual starting point driving the component exercises. See how dryland training can exponentially improve your time in the mountains.
