My Journey to Tempo Physical Therapy & Performance

Why PT in the first place?

I was lucky. I went into college knowing exactly what I wanted to do and I had friends older than me that pretty much laid out the exact path that I knew I needed to follow. While my roommates were switching majors every semester trying to decide on their career paths, I had spreadsheets of different PT programs and the respective prerequisite courses I would need in order to apply. I was in middle school when I first learned about physical therapy as a career. I went to a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta sports medicine location when I was around 11 years old for some nagging knee pain from playing tennis. My PT made every session so exciting with different games to distract me from realizing that I was actually doing my rehab exercises. From then on, I was pretty much set.

I had a momentary lapse in judgement my senior year of high school when I briefly considered studying mechanical engineering in college. I was good at math and science all through school but I had zero interest in solving random equations for the rest of my life. I also considered doing athletic training in college but with the demands of competing in a Division 1 sport at University of Georgia, my advisor basically said there was no way that was going to work and pushed me towards majoring in Exercise & Sport Science. I gladly complied and have been so grateful ever since.

When was the idea behind Tempo PT born?

I entered my first year of PT school at Duke set on the fact that I was going to work with a college sports team as their physical therapist. That quickly changed. Realizing the time demands that go into working in the world of high level athletics made that option look a lot less desirable. Plus, we were exposed to so many different fields in PT school that I never knew about beforehand which really switched my focus. I had rotations in neurological rehab, acute care, cardiopulmonary rehab, orthopedics and pediatrics. My favorite setting was a blend between pediatrics and orthopedics-working with youth athletes. But with my extensive background in the sport of distance running, I also developed a huge passion for working with endurance athletes of all ages.

Owning my own physical therapy clinic was always in the back of my mind but I never really put a timeline on it. It was just something that I would eventually do. It wasn’t until the start of 2023 where I really started to talk about it as if it was a reality. A reality with an actual timeline. I told my husband back in January, “I am going to do it. June 2023.” Well I jumped in 1000% from that moment and haven’t looked back. I thought June sounded too far away so a week later, I gave my notice at my job and started to really get everything ready to open in April. Things really started to fall in place so quickly and I had complete peace throughout the entire process. I found an awesome space. I had a family friend design a logo. I joined an incredible PT business coaching group. Tempo Physical Therapy & Performance was finally real!

What is the goal of Tempo PT?

My biggest goal: Give runners and athletes a place to go where they will be encouraged to keep moving, not told to stop! Sometimes that looks like being able to keep running while other times it may look like transitioning to cross training. I consistently will have patients come in and say '“I haven’t done anything for two months. My doctor told me to stop and rest.” With just about any injury, there are so many things that could’ve been done within that time frame that would have set the patient up for a quicker and definitely more enjoyable recovery process. Keeping patients active is my number one mission.

Another big difference that I wanted to bring to Tempo PT was the quality of individualized care for patients. I started out in the insurance based model for physical therapy and trust me when I say this, I was not doing skilled PT. I would have 2-3 (sometimes 4) patients scheduled at once and would bounce between them as best I could. I’d toss them off to a PT aide to go through a cookie cutter exercise program. I knew that what I was doing was not worth the 7 year investment I made in school, intellectually and financially. I then had the privilege of working in a cash based physical therapy model and knew this is the way PT was meant to be done. I knew that I could never go back to the insurance model of physical therapy. Check out my blog post of benefits of cash based physical therapy to learn more about the differences.

How does this new reality feel?

Jumping into this next adventure has been exciting and overwhelming but in the BEST way possible. As I said before, I have an indescribable peace around the decision I made to start my own physical therapy business. I couldn’t be more thrilled to go on this journey and serve my patients the way I know that they deserve!