This has been one of the wildest years everr! While other people and newsletters are sending you their holly jolly yearly recaps, I just want to level with you for a hot second. While 2025 was amazing, here are the things that weren't amazing:

• I only sent 26 newsletters this year compared to 44 the previous year. That's only about half! Apologies to the die-hards on here.
• I glorified being busy a little too much and only took 2 weeks off this year (those just ended). I need to remember that the sprint-rest cycle is real and that I need some more rest to optimize the sprints.
• I learned that scaling people is a lot harder than scaling ideas. I'll continue to work on skills associated with this in 2026.

Some of these setbacks (above) lead to some of the steps forward, though. Like building out our 2500 square foot space inside Eau Claire Athletic Club, and opening this past August - something that took blood, sweat, tears... and lots of psych visits! 😂

And while things were crazy on the hiring and in-person fronts (hiring a total of 31 staff as I close out 2025 with this email), we managed to still put out some great online content that we can't wait to ramp up in 2026. So sit back, find some space to relax, and scan our "best of" 2025 below.

5 MOST LOVED EMAILS OF THE YEAR ARE:

• 🏆 How to Lose Muscle in 1 Week: A slightly savage but evidence-backed reminder that muscle loss starts fast - sometimes in just days.
• ​Stretching Won’t Prevent Your Next Injury (But This Might): This one got the most email replies this year! We covered why stretching doesn’t reduce injury risk, how strength training cuts overuse injuries nearly in half, and more.
• ​What Cutting Drills, Teenage Knees, and Vitamin C Have in Common: I was personally proud of this email for the creativity to loop in all three of these topics into one email. The Vitamin C study I cite weekly!! Would recommend reading.
• ​Insights on VO₂max: What Your Watch Misses & Rate Your Fitness: This one was a reality check on smartwatch VO₂max scores - why they’re estimates, when they’re misleading, and what actually matters.
• ​Why Your Hamstrings Might Be the Missing Link: This one had the most practical exercise videos, which is the style I hope to continue to expand upon and deliver in more newsletters in 2026.

TOP 5 INSTAGRAM POSTS OF THE YEAR ARE:

• 🏆 Overall most shocking post: When we announced we made a baby!
• ​Best hype post: I won an award! This was truly a great weekend flying to Ontario for the CSEP conference and accepting this award. Thank you for the support!
• ​Craziest collab post: Our client Erinn had to undergo one of the rarest spinal surgeries that we know of this year - and our collab post letting the world know really drew some eyeballs! Thankfully Erinn is recovering fully and ready to tackle training again in 2026 at Vital thanks to her physio Charlie!
• ​The infamous tendons article! If you've ever had a tendinopathy that took months and months and months to solve, despite feeling like you were doing everything you could - this post is for you.
• ​Most interacted with: Free Massage: For December, we decided to lead with 6 day of giveaways instead of Black Friday deals, and this post got 162 comments - for good reason! A free massage with Michael - sign us up!! (P.s. if you're in Calgary he still offers free intro massages bookable HERE).

5 MOST READ ARTICLES OF THE YEAR ARE:

• 🏆 A Critical Look at Full Body Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) Training – Is the hype all wrong? This was an article I didn't promote much on social media this past year, but Google drove a lot of traffic to this one interestingly! (81 thousand views!)
• ​Do Squats Count As Cardio? This post was inspired by an influence of ours - and we hope we did the topic justice with all the hypothetical math and references in this one... it took quite a while to write! (45 thousand views)
• ​What is Anaerobic Threshold? (+sample workouts!): This wasn't an article we wrote in the last year, but with the massive amounts of views it's still getting, I thought I would share it in case you haven't read it yet! (38 thousand views)
• ​Which Test Is Right for You? A Guide to Performance & Rehab Testing: This comprehensive guide got a lot more love than I would have expected. For all of you who have personal health goals on your 2026 wishlist, you'll want to peep that article.
• ​Chiropractic vs. Physiotherapy: A Calgary Guide to Choosing the Right Care for Pain or Injury: This one was only posted recently, but it was one of my business partner's first articles on our site, and it's been getting a lot of good feedback!

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Some of the other exciting projects we have planned for 2026:

The Conditioning Workshop in Calgary March 14-15 (new landing page launching soon but for now THIS is where you'll need to go). As well as....

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And a secret third Foundations.... can you guess what it is?

Reply if you've got something to say about this or any questions about tackling performance or rehab care in 2026! I reply 100% of the time. See you in 2026 with gusto.

Yours in physiology,

Carla