CRISTINA SHUPE, PT — PHYSICAL THERAPIST
I’m Cristi, founder and owner of Calyx Physical Therapy.
People often ask how I ended up doing this kind of work. The honest answer starts early — with a high school anatomy class at seventeen that held my attention more than anything had before, and my own experience of searching for answers in my body for conditions I'd experienced since childhood. I was drawn first to the sheer logic of how the body is built and moves, and soon after to the realization that I could help people reach or return to wellness. This was also a time when research on exercise, movement, and overall health was taking off — exercise was increasingly being called "essential medicine" — and I wanted to be part of it.
That pull first took me to nutrition — I earned a BS in Dietetics & Clinical Nutrition — but by the end of my training, I understood what I actually wanted: to work with the body directly, with my hands. Following that realization, I chose the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences to complete my graduate physical therapy education.
Over the years, my work as a physical therapist has included orthopedic and neurological conditions, along with many patients experiencing complex and persistent pain, particularly pelvic pain and urogynecologic and pelvic floor muscle dysfunction.
Years into that work, a major turning point came with Fascial Counterstrain. Since my first course in 2013, understanding the role that inflammation and fascial dysfunction can play in pain and other complex conditions has reshaped how I think about the body and healing. I stay actively involved in advanced FCS training, drawn by the work itself, the fast-moving research in fascial science, and the better outcomes it brings my patients.
That early fascination with anatomy and healing never left; if anything, it has deepened. Knowing now, in real detail, what I can do with Fascial Counterstrain, I'm more amazed by the body than ever.
Calyx Physical Therapy is the expression of all of it: nearly three decades of experience, a commitment to always keep learning, and the conviction that the body is built to heal.
I love what I do and consider it an honor to help each person I work with through their healing journey. All these years later, I'd choose this work again, and hearing a patient say, "I feel better," never gets old.