I want to be strong enough to be in the game with my kids, not on the sidelines.
I am 46, and an older dad. That is my reason. Everyone has one.
The first client was me. At forty my back hurt all the time and a twice-repaired knee kept breaking down. Staying active was central to who I was, and I was on my way out of it. The imaging showed some abnormalities and nothing concrete. I started with a personal trainer and kept injuring myself.
What finally worked wasn't a new exercise or another program. It was measurement. And people who knew what to do with it. A trainer who noticed I kept getting hurt sent me to a physical therapist who would treat the whole chain instead of the one spot. He produced the numbers that finally explained it: a thirty percent strength asymmetry between my legs behind the knee issues, a torn labrum from guarding that knee by braking with my hip instead, and back pain from an SI joint absorbing the imbalance. Force plates, dynamometers and DEXA measured whether any of it was working.
In December 2024 I sat on a surfboard in Santa Teresa. Four years of work, to understand how to fix the asymmetries, learn the right movements and gain the strength to do a thing I loved. I said a silent prayer of thanks for the opportunity to be the Dad on the wave, with my son and daughter looking on.
My motivation is to be on that surfboard, with them in the water, as long as I possibly can.
Life is rarely linear. After being the strongest I have ever been, I tore my ACL in January 2026, skiing. The same system is helping me build back, because I knew how strong I was and I know how strong I need to be. That is what motivates me, and it is how I measure whether I am getting there.
The chart is my own legs, November to August. On both legs the muscle went down, 8% on the left and 3% on the right. On both legs the force went up, 3% on the left and 24% on the right. The left is the leg with the rebuilt ACL. Muscle and force are not the same number, and here they moved in opposite directions on the same dates. That is why we measure them separately.
That system took a great deal of luck, curiosity and grit to assemble. Basal Strength exists so it does not have to be built one person at a time.
I spent twenty-one years at EY and left as a partner. Basal Strength came after, but the work behind it started at forty, on my own body. I am not a clinician. That is why a physical therapist is in the room for every session, and why the report is built to give your physician what they need.