Vermont's trail season runs from early spring through late fall — and for outdoor athletes who spend serious time on the mountain, what's in the pack matters as much as what's on the feet. Energy through the trails, less inflammation in the joints, fewer muscle cramps, and faster recovery between days out all come back to one thing: fueling well before, during, and after the effort. This post is a practical hiking nutrition guide built specifically for Vermont trail athletes

If you have spent any time in the trail running community, you have heard the debate. Heel strike versus forefoot strike. Zero drop versus cushioned. Minimalist versus maximalist. Everyone has an opinion, and most of them are stated with more certainty than the evidence actually supports. As physical therapists who work with trail runners throughout Vermont — from casual hikers who have caught the running bug to athletes training for mountain races on Camel's Hump and Mt. Man

Physical training gets most of the attention in athletic development. Strength, mobility, endurance, technique — these are the variables most athletes spend their time working on. But there's a cognitive dimension to athletic performance that's just as trainable and just as impactful: the ability to honestly reflect on the past, accurately understand the present, and thoughtfully plan for the future. Hindsight, insight, and foresight for athletes aren't abstract philosophical

It's one of the most common questions in physical therapy: can you overdo an exercise? The honest answer is yes — and also no. It depends. But "it depends" is only useful if it's followed by an explanation of what it depends on. Here's the fuller answer, along with a framework for thinking about exercise progression that removes most of the guesswork. When the Answer Is Yes — You Can Overdo It Any exercise, performed at too high a volume, too high an intensity, or in a positi

Every day, a choice is being made — consciously or not. The body and mind are either being built up or broken down. There's no neutral position. Every decision about sleep, movement, nutrition, stress, relationships, and recovery contributes to one direction or the other. The framework that makes this easy to understand: the body and mind are a business. And every person is the CEO. Building a better you through health and performance isn't a passive process. It requires the

As the calendar turns toward summer, the shift in Vermont's natural environment is impossible to miss. Longer days, warmer temperatures, and the return of green — and with it, an abundance of fresh produce that simply doesn't exist at any other time of year. Strawberries, fiddleheads, green beans, blueberries, raspberries, tomatoes, and corn arrive not because a supply chain delivered them from a distant growing region, but because Vermont's soil and climate are producing the

My CrossFit Journey, Reflections by the newest Snowbeast Performance team member Ashleigh Angle What is the big deal with CrossFit?...

When the season changes — snow melting, grasses greening, daylight extending — something shifts in the way people relate to their lives. The external environment changes visibly and completely, and that visible change creates a natural invitation to look inward and ask an honest question: where am I, and where do I actually want to go? Seasonal reassessment for athletes is one of the most underutilized tools in long-term performance and health development. Most athletes evalu

There's a particular feeling that arrives in late winter — unmistakable for anyone who spends the snow season on the mountain. The base is still there. There's snow in the forecast. But the grass is starting to show through at the edges, the packed snow has that heavy wet quality that only comes at the end of the season, and the days are clearly getting longer. Winter isn't gone, but its grip is loosening. For most outdoor athletes in Vermont, the end of ski and snowboard sea

One of the greatest exercises we can do for the human body also happens to be a primary movement in snowboarding. Squatting effectively not only keeps us on the mountain all day, but it's also the same movement we use hundreds of time everyday, whether we are trying to or not. The squat motion is the same movement we use every time we stand up or sit down. Every time we sit down to eat, work, read, or rest, every time we sit on the toilet, every time we lift from the ground

Wait, what? Yes, regional interdependence is a real term in physical therapy — and no, it was not made up to sound impressive. It describes something that has profound implications for how injuries develop, why pain persists, and why treating one area of the body often produces improvements somewhere else entirely. The core idea: everything in your body is connected, and a seemingly unrelated area can be the actual source of pain, weakness, or restricted movement somewhere el

Closing day is a bittersweet moment for any snowboarder. The last run of the season carries its own particular feeling — a mix of satisfaction from everything the season delivered and the quiet acknowledgment that it's over until the snow returns. The gear goes back in the bag, the boots get unlaced for the last time, and the board that carried through every run of the winter gets leaned against the wall. Before it stays there for six months, there's one more task worth doing