From the Gym to the Kitchen: Soup, Science, and Strength

Hi Friend,

It’s great to connect with you! Volleyball season just wrapped up, and we celebrated with our year-end banquet on Sunday. It was so rewarding to be back in the gym in that way. I'm incredibly proud of all the girls who worked hard and grew not just their volleyball skills, but their leadership skills as well—that's truly what it’s all about.

With the season over, I've dived headfirst into the NextGen course by Dr. Stacy Sims.

Closing the Gap in Girls' Athletic Health

This is a topic I am fiercely passionate about: athletic development for girls, how hormone influences impact their bodies, and how those changes affect injury risk.

I have spent so much time researching and learning about this because, like many young female athletes, I went through multiple ACL tears at 16 and 18, followed by all the surgeries. Seeing a local girls' soccer club recently have three girls tear their ACLs on one 13U team is absolutely heartbreaking, and it proves that there’s a massive gap in this understanding—both for young girls in development and for us as adult athletes. I want to help anyone I can avoid what I went through.

This learning will heavily inform the way I build out training and nutrition plans for all my clients in the future, ensuring we are always fueling for performance and injury resilience.

Winter Wellness & Quick Strength Tips

Now that the weather has officially turned, I'm working on putting together some festive recipes for the upcoming holidays—Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas. What are your must-have favorites? Let me know!

In the gym, my favorite exercises to program lately are the Pallof Press (amazing for core stability and rotational control) and the simple but incredibly effective Cat-Cow stretch to mobilize the spine and calm the nervous system. Give those a try this week!

My Family’s Cold-Fighting Solution: Large Batch Chicken Soup

With November here, the inevitable winter colds have started to circulate. I just made a large batch of my new Anti-Inflammatory Chicken & Pumpkin Broth Soup to help keep everyone healthy. The kids loved it, and so did Mitch and I!

This soup is veggie-filled, protein-rich, and packed with anti-inflammatory power:

• It contains amazing herbs like turmeric and paprika.

• It uses oregano, which contains beneficial compounds such as carvacrol and thymol, which have been shown to help inhibit the replication and spread of viruses.

The recipe is easily scalable and perfect for meal prepping.

Get the Full Recipe Here: Large Batch Anti-Inflammatory Chicken Soup

Stay warm, stay healthy, and let me know what your favorite holiday recipes are!

With strength and purpose,

Laura