Injury Prevention & Recovery with Clinical Massage Therapist

My name is Wendy Keller, I’m a wellness coach and clinical massage therapist-during the week I work at a Chiropractor office in Hermosa; weekends is at my private practice in Manhattan Beach. I was a soccer player my entire youth, indoor and outdoor, until 18 when my family relocated from the Chicago burbs to Las Vegas.

Vegas didn’t have any female or mixed leagues in those ancient days so I stuck to running outside and that’s when I got into hiking, cycling and yoga. Years later after returning to Chicago for college (American Academy of Art), I met Ed Casey.

After a major neck injury that I could not fully recover from, we decided to pack up our amazing pup, Tex and drive west into the sunset.....That’s the short version-it was extremely painful and completely debilitating for approx 4 years until we left and I continued my treatment regimen in Cali.

In total I went through 8 years of intense rehabilitation and literally had to change every aspect in my life from sleeping, breathing, sneezing, exercising, how to deal with flaring-up and taking months to recover and learn how to blow past that current stage of recovery safely.

That process is what inspired me to start coaching other people how to go through the injury process or manage a chronic issue: what to do, what NOT to do, what/how to change movement patterns, what other modalities to use, how to ergo-dynamic your life and become as pain free as possible. I love helping people get back to feeling like themselves again.

I’ve not participated in running a race yet, but I’ve worked with many triathletes and Iron Man qualifiers over my career and spent 3 years working the medical tent at the Chicago City Marathon so I have much respect for long distance athletes. My max is 4 miles when I’m strong. I hope this year to cheer more often and maybe even attempt my 1st 5k!