Catch Up with PTA Chelsea Muncy - Renegade Physical Therapy

Welcome to Pelby biz podcast. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui. I have grown and established brick and mortar practice in Northern Virginia called Ortho Pelvic Physical Therapy and also founded Pelvibiz, which is an online business consulting company that helps healthcare providers make more money and be healthy while doing it, especially in the pelvic health realm. So let's get into today's episode.

Today. I have a special guest today, Chelsea. Chelsea, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself who you are, who your company is and we can go from there? Yeah.

Hi everyone. My name is Chelsea Muncie and I am a physical therapist assistant, a women's health and wellness coach and I own a CrossFit Sports Performance Olympic weightlifting gym as well as a cash based physical therapy clinic in Dayton, Ohio. And I just have a passion for empowering women through health and wellness. And that's a little bit about me.

Yeah, that's amazing. And you just had a baby?

Yes, this is my third pregnancy, so I have a four and a half year old, will be five next month. And then I actually also lost a baby about two and a half years ago. And so I have a two month, two and a half month old now and she's our rainbow baby. So lots of experience with different pregnancies and the journeys with those as well.

Yeah, I know, that's amazing. There's so much to unpack here, guys. So this is going to be an amazing episode. So please stay to the end because I think you're going to hear a lot out of Chelsea and get a lot of information. So Chelsea, we what made you as a PTA? There's this false belief that PTAs cannot have their own business. Can we kind of like what made you go ahead and try to take those steps to having your own practice? And can we kind of debunk that belief?

Yeah. So I started off already owning the gym side of our business with my husband. And when I was in college I thought I was going to go to PT school. But after I met him and started coaching at the gym, we decided, hey, we're going to do this thing together. And it really took off and I started coaching younger kids and it was a lot of fun. But then we decided like the parents were asking, like, what can we do? What can you guys do for us? So then we added the adult side of business and with that came injuries. And I was like, how can we help these adults continue on their fitness journey but also treat their injuries as well? And so then I decided to go back to PTA school because I didn't want the student loan debt of PT school. And I just wanted to learn some stuff that maybe I didn't already know as a coach to help them with, like the rehab side. So I did that. And then little did you know, people started getting pregnant as we started treating or training adult clients. And I was like, oh crap, how do I help these women? Because, you know, I don't know anything about pregnancy and working out. So I did my research, took a couple courses, and then got pregnant myself during that journey and decided, okay, wow, there's like this women's health public floor thing. Didn't know that existed. There was this clinic down the street from us that we had been partnering with a little bit. They were really more on like the sports medicine side side of things. And so I had spoke with them during my pregnancy and we decided that I was going to start a women's health program there. And so I got certified and started working with them, started their women's health program. And then we decided to go on this journey to build our own facility. And so we built this amazing gym that we have now. And we decided that, hey, I wanted my own freedom, my own time, make my own schedule. And as already knowing how to run a business, I just needed a PT to come on board with me. That's all I needed as a pta. And so that's what I did. I just took a leap of faith and found a PT to that was really willing to go in with me. And we started the cash based side of the business as well. And it's definitely had its up and downs. We've only had it for two years now, so it's still pretty new. But as a PTA and already being a business owner, I think just having that mentality that we can try it, we might fail, we might not, and let's see what happens. I think that's what is why I got started in the first place with this side of the business.

Yeah, for sure. And I think it's unique that you had the fitness facility first and then I think that probably gave you confidence to be like, you know what? Kind of like what you said. Because a lot of people aren't saying, well, I'll just try it. If it fails, it fails. Like a lot of people are not doing that part right.

Yeah.

So I think you were able to do that because you had the business side to it. And we're like, you know what, if not I can go back to Just doing the gym thing. Right. And you can do both, by the way. Right? So I think that's huge there. So what made you guys, when it came to doing the cash based thing, what made you guys really say, I really want to pull the trigger on this and go kind of all in on it to serve this, this population? Was it because your past pregnancies was. Or your. Yeah, your past pregnancies? Or was it because, hey, we just see a need here and that we want to be the people to fulfill that? Like, what was it?

Yeah, I think it was a combination of both. With my pregnancy, I just realized that there's not a lot of PTs out there that know functional medicine and functional strength training.

Right.

And so I was like, there really is a need for these women to have a coach slash pelvic floor specialist in their corner during pregnancy with weightlifting afterwards for recovery. And my husband saw that as well. And so I just decided, like, I want to focus more on the women that are into fitness and helping them through that journey of during postpartum and really getting back into weightlifting or just CrossFit in general. And I still have found that there's a lot of great pelvic floor therapists out there that really understand the basic rehabs of pelvic floor therapy, but they do not know how to educate and coach someone on a proper squat, a proper deadlift, a proper clean. And I think that's been my biggest struggle as a PTA is finding pts that really understand that stuff. Because not only do we do pelvic floor therapy, we have, we work with athletes too. We train a lot of athletes and they're coming to us for, for PT needs too. And that's something that I have to say that I have struggled with that.

No, and I actually, I completely agree with that. It is as a ortho, pelvic physical, physical therapy practice and Chelsea and I treat very similarly or have the same kind of ethos. And the fact that we do really go and take the patient not just to the basic rehab, we take them to get them back to the marathon, to get them to PR in CrossFit, to get them to be able to lift, you know, 2 to 3x the ways that they were lifting like that to us is rehab. And some other providers that are probably listening to this are probably like, no, that's not rehab. That's a coach's responsibility or a trainer's responsibility. How we look at it as. No, we are the experts and we should get them back to all the way to their goal, no matter how heavy that weight is, no matter how long that running distance is. And that truly is what we specialize in, is movement and function. And I do. I have to agree with you, Chelsea. I do find that throughout the years, I think as years go on, it's harder and harder to find PTs, OTs, PTAs, with a fitness background that kind of truly knows movement. Because a lot of times we're taught what's the next best manual technique, and it doesn't actually get the patients the results. I mean, we're just being honest here, right?

Yeah, definitely. You can do as much internal work as you want, and sometimes that's not gonna get them to where they need to be. Especially if it's someone that wants to get back to marathon running or jumping, doing double unders. If you're not assessing how they're jumping and teaching them how to improve that stuff, then their symptoms aren't going to get better, no matter how much manual work you are doing. And knowing how to progress them with those exercises and getting them back to those double unders without pain is not just teaching them how to do a ta, contraction or breathing. It's a lot more to it. And you really have to assess each side of the body and there's just so much more to it. And I've found as a pta, it's really hard for pts to mentor or get coaching from a pta. But we all know egos.

Is it. Is it ego or what is it?

I think that's part of it. Um, but I. I feel as. I'm a pretty nice person and I just like to educate people, and so I really just want to educate the pts that come in and help them.

Right.

So that they can treat their patients better. And so I don't know if it's an ego thing, because I'm not a PT and they are, but I could. I could go back to PT school if I really wanted, but I don't want to because I can still treat people how I want without being a pt. So I would say if there's a PTA listening to this, that probably is going to be one of your biggest struggles, if you do want to open your clinic, is trying to find a PT that really trust in you, and if you are a little more educated than them, that they want to learn.

From you, that this is great. So let's. I want to dive into that because there are going to be PTAs that are listening to this and want to do what you're doing, by the way. Okay, so with that being said, how did you yourself get past that? Like, what did you mentally have to do something? Did you physically have to go and take 20,000 Con Ed court? Like, what did you do to make. Like, how do you have the confidence? How do you have the confidence in yourself to be like, well, I'm not listening to that or I'm going to keep edging. Like, what made you get past that?

I would say there was a little mental block there for a little while. Like, man, maybe I should go back to school and just get my PT degree. A little bit of that confidence came from just coaching more women myself and seeing the results that I was getting with them. And the more that I did that and the more patients that I was seeing working under pts and them saying, can I be on Chelsea's schedule? And requesting to be with me helped increase my confidence. And once I started seeing those results, then I started having more confidence in myself. But it definitely just also takes like a business mentality too, to know that, hey, you started this business, you are the leader. And so I guess you have to have a little bit more of like, leadership qualities to get over that. Okay, I just have a PTA degree. No, you don't just have a PTA degree. You have this wealth of knowledge. And it doesn't matter what degree or certifications that you have, you can help people with the knowledge that you have. And it doesn't matter what that is. People, people really don't care 100%.

I couldn't agree more. Does not matter what label PT, PTA does not matter what personal trainer. I truly believe everyone's unique does not depend on your schooling. It depends on everything that encompasses, even before the schooling that's actually going to make you unique. And if you know and you have belief. What Chelsea just said is indirectly, she said by her seeing patients and her basically proving to herself, then gave her the belief that she is worthy and that she has then the confidence to do whatever she wants. And that's what it's like in business too, guys. The more that you just put yourself out there and say, you know what, I'm just going to try, I'm just going to try to do this. And kind of like Chelsea said at the beginning, like, if it doesn't work out, I mean, none of us are really saying that, but if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But like, kind of having that mentality is actually going to make you be able to do the business thing, whether or not you're a pt, pta, ot, a trainer, you know, whatever. Like, I was just talking to someone. She's a PTA and she's from a different country. And she came here and she was like, I can't start my practice. They want me to be a pt. And I said, nope, that is not true. And she could start it. And so she, she started it. And she's doing training right now. She's starting with training, actually. And I said, perfect, Great. That's where we're going to start. We're going to build the clientele and.

Then go from there.

Right. So it is a limiting belief for all those PTAs out, and even PTs and even OTs that if you have something special and people keep requesting it, you need to run with it. You need to take that as a sign. And it doesn't matter if you just came out of school or if you've been out of school for 20,000 years. Okay. Or if you had one course in pelvic floor, or if you had 20 courses in pelvic floor, if you have the belief that you are worthy and can help people, then you should put it to good use. That's it.

That's exactly right. And belief is everything. And I would say, just like you said, putting yourself out there, the more workshops and events that I do, especially women's health related, I get even more confident each time from those workshops. And I also notice, like, how empowered I feel after those because I'm doing something different, that these fitness gyms or I just did a fitness sampler this past weekend and I did the very first class of the day and it was core strengthening. And I educated women first before we did any core exercises on, you know, how to strengthen your core the right way. And the rest of the classes, the rest of the day were just body weight exercises, jumping orange theory classes, Turbo Zone, Swerk. And it was just so nice to work. Yeah, I. I would never have the rhythm to do something like that. But kudos to those people that love those types of classes. It's not for me, but it just felt good knowing that I was able to start the day and educate those women on something they have never heard or seen before. I mean, there was people that raised their hand, they didn't know what their pelvic floor was. And I was like, okay, well. And so just getting out there and putting yourself out there and educating people gives you even more confidence that you know what you're doing and Gives you belief that you're doing the right thing that you should be doing.

Yeah. So what would you say the most rewarding thing is based off your fitness place and also the cash based practice, what would you say is the most rewarding out of all of the. The chaos sometimes that it can be, and all the hard days, what would you say, like, brings you the most joy?

I would say just hearing the stories from our clients. I have an all women's boot camp class that I do, and when I say boot camp, it's more just strength training and teaching them about their core and public floor as well, and seeing results from that and hearing women become more confident in themselves because of the classes and the nutrition. And a lot of them have done pelvic floor therapy as well. And like, hey, I'm back to jumping on the trampoline with my kids and I can run and chase around with them because I just feel so much stronger and confident in myself. That's the most rewarding thing of this business. Through the hard days, you know, you just look back at those reviews and you're like, okay, God has me in place where he wants me to be. Even though some days as a business owner can be very hard, because you never know what to expect as a business owner. Life, it's gonna throw you curve balls for sure.

For sure. And I, I can completely agree to that. I think the, the outcomes that you can get with patients is just amazing. And how you can truly impact and change lives, that's what keeps us going. And you know, on the hard days, when you're just like, why did I start this? You know, I'm sure, Chelsea, you've had these days of, why did I? You know, what was something hard that you guys have been through even over the last year or two years, that you're like, man, like, how am I ever going to get past this? And then like, how did you move past it? Like, at first, when you're in these hard times, you're like, I don't even see the way out of this. I really don't. Like, I know, at least for us here at Orthopelvic, like, I moved 24 patients, 24 employees in and out this past year. Very, very hard year. Okay.

Yes.

And that is just like, how do I see the light? Right. So for you, is there something that you're like, I didn't know how I was gonna get over it, but I actually got over it. And now that I'm able to get over it, now I have less fear about that happening in my business. Because most of us tend to live in fearful mode when we run a business because we've never experienced that. We don't know how to work through it.

Right.

So that when Chelsea's talking about confidence, okay. In her just treating patients, that also gives you confidence to be able to say, you know what? Screw it, I'm going to do whatever I want in business because look what I just got over. Right? So is there, you know, is there a point where you're like, man, this is really hard, and then how did you get over it? Yeah.

I can specifically remember two instances when I've had those thoughts. The first one was when we lost our son. I was in the hospital. My husband had emergency appendix removal the same week that our son was in the nicu and we were both gone from our business for a while and things happened. And not even a month later, we had five coaches leave. Leave our gym after losing a son.

Wow.

So I wasn't even six weeks postpartum when I had to go back to work to coach because we didn't have our coaches anymore. We were, we were in, you know, having to find new coaches and interview them. We were also. Our building was about to be finished, so we built $1 million facility. And, you know, what we had imagined was going to happen in this new facility was no longer going to happen. Right, right, right. And plus, I was grieving at the same time, so that was one of the hardest times of my life. I'm gonna get a little emotional here.

No, it's. It is.

But with the support of our members and just how supportive they were, and then my husband.

Again.

We've always just had faith throughout our journey, and that's what we did. We just leaned on our faith during our. During that time. And God sent us coaches like not even that. Next week, we got an email from someone that was moving into town, and then someone walked into our gym looking for a job that was. That had just moved here from Texas and he is still with us today. So faith is the only thing that got me through during that time. And then a year into the cash based PT practice, I want to say we were kind of 50, 50 into this cash based practice. My PT decided that she wanted to leave and open her own business because she had her own aspirations and she wanted to work less and I get it for her family and still make the same amount of money. So now I'm here a PTA without a pt owning a cash based practice. Only a year into It. And at that point, I was like to my husband, I don't want to do this. And he was like, chelsea, you are the one that started this, not her. You have the education. You have the business background. It wasn't because of her. Is why your business, our business, was thriving. It's because of you. And, you know, just having his support and taking some time to really think about, okay, how do I want to move forward? What kind of PT do I want to look for? And Kelly's support as well. She's always been so supportive and just encouraging. You know, say, hey, this is where you need to look for someone. This is where you need to go Put your thing on here. You need to do this right now.

Yeah.

You did not let me. Like, no, Chelsea, like. And so just having people in your corner can really help during those toughest, tough times. But just know that that's business, and it's a mentality thing. It really is. And you don't learn it until you go through it 100%.

And it doesn't give you. No one can teach you that confidence until you go through it. You know, you can have guidance, but you don't really get the confidence until you're like, what am I made of? And it's not just physical. It's one thing with your body being physical, but it's also very mental, like you said. And can you keep every single day waking up and putting just one foot forward, one foot forward, and it may be the smallest little baby step, and you're thinking, oh, my God, how the heck am I going to keep moving forward? There is no way. I'm done. Like you said, I'm done. Like, I can't do this. This thing is going to kill me. Right? But then you have to say, you know what? I maybe need to walk it out for a second, take some press, and let me get back on this? And that's what you did. And then that's why, because you kept going. You didn't give up, and your husband didn't let you give up. I didn't let you give up. No one let. You gave up. And you said, okay, let's. I got to get back on the horse. And have you. I would say, have your day. Cry it out, have your week if you wanted to, you know, and then we got to get after it again. So, yeah, I think this is. This is amazing. So let me ask you one more question here. So now, been through all that. Okay, that's probably just. Guys, that's just probably the Minimum. Okay. You've been through all that. So now like, what's the next step? What's the next step for the company? Where do you guys see yourself? What's the plan? We'd love to hear it. Yeah.

So my husband is taking on a full time head coaching football position.

Okay.

This next fall. Okay. And so he's going to be stepping away a little bit. And so I'm taking on more responsibilities in this business. And our next step is just to continue to grow our clientele and more of like our adult clients. That's like our focus right now. We have a great, you know, youth program, but just continuing to help adults more. And how do they fit that into their lifestyle with their kids? Because now I have two kids and it's like trying to fit stuff in for myself is nearly impossible as a business owner as well. And we have this great recovery room with a cold plunge asana red light therapy that we just got probably like six months ago. And so that's the next step is just continue growing our cash based recovery room side of the business and adults.

Yeah. So where do you guys see that going with the recovery? I mean, I've seen so many different models, but are you guys doing it a membership version of it? Are you guys doing it for your athletes and your adults in the cash practice? Like, what do you, how are you structuring that?

Yeah. So anyone in our gym can use it or anyone from outside of the gym, they can book per session and book their room for an hour or we have a membership base where they can use it as many times as they want in the month. And any of our PT clients get access to that room as, as long as they have completed or they're going through their physical therapy, they have unlimited access to that room.

Yeah, that's great. That's. That's where it's going. And I think it's your, your model is such a multifaceted approach. Hitting it from the nutrition side side, hitting it from the. Just the wellness side of it. All right. The recovery side, the anti aging side, which every thing is going that way and then also hitting it from the pain aspect, the rehab side and all that. So it's really a multifaceted approach which is, hey guys, if you don't have that, if you do not have that, it's going to be hard to make it in these next couple of years. I really believe that you have to be more dynamic than just doing rehab. If you're just doing rehab, why doesn't someone go down the street to the hospital system and just go and do that because that's what they provide there. So you got to stand out in the marketplace. Chelsea is doing it, you guys, Chelsea, they got to figure out like how to find you. We should put, you know, if you want to tell them where to find you and if you're having any products or anything like that, please let us know, you know what it is. I'm sure people would be interested.

Yeah, you can find us @Renegadept Ohio on Instagram or Renegade Physical Therapy or just Renegade Warehouse in general on Facebook. And I am doing an online postpartum six week class I'm doing in person and online for mamas that just want a return to fitness, but they don't quite know where or you know, they can't quite find the pelvic floor therapist that they need in their area. Anyone from afar can do it from home. If you can't make it outside of your home. And that's one of my, I guess I would say one of the things that is up and coming. I just started it this week and just looking forward to offering that online as well. And yeah, going from there.

That's awesome. That's amazing. Amazing. Another, another little hybrid thing to what she has going on, guys. So amazing. Amazing. That's awesome. We'll put in the show notes too. So if you guys want access to that or want to join, we'd be more than happy to get that to you guys. So thanks Chelsea, so much for coming on. I mean, it's amazing story. It's amazing to see what you're doing and you really are inspiring all of us to be more dynamic, think outside the box and not letting your own beliefs get in the way of stopping you from doing whatever. And like you said, we just gotta try and that's all we gotta do.

So yeah, thanks for having me, Kelly.

Yeah, no problem. Bye guys.

Bye.

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