Aerospace Engineer turned Physical Therapist: Ann Crowe | The Vance Crowe Podcast | Episode 28

About this episode

A rare "in the family" interview: Vance sits down with his wife Ann Crowe, a former aerospace engineer and Notre Dame competitive swimmer (Olympic trials in backstroke) who pivoted careers to become a physical therapist after her own Ironman training injuries introduced her to the discipline. The conversation opens playfully with Ann critiquing the ergonomics of Vance's podcast-guest chair, then dives deep into biomechanics: chair posture and why "sit up straight" often fails without addressing the furniture itself, standing desks and walking treadmills, and — at length — the story of Vance's own shin-pain scare during his 500-mile running goal, where Ann diagnosed an early stress fracture and prescribed a metronome-driven cadence correction that initially felt maddening (no music, no podcasts) but eventually became automatic through motor learning. Ann contrasts her own early athletic ignorance (poor sleep, poor nutrition, training methodology that didn't match race-day intensity) with what she now knows, and recounts being told dismissively by an orthopedist that she was "too weak" to train for an Ironman — a moment of institutional, assembly-line medicine that stands in sharp contrast to the one-on-one model she's building at her new practice. The episode closes with the real news hook: Ann is leaving her clinician role at Washington University to co-found Precision Physical Therapy in Clayton, Missouri with business partner Jesse Slo (wife of past guest Camden Velo), built explicitly to escape the volume-driven insurance model and give patients up to an hour of individualized attention.

“One day you forget your metronome and you get back and you check your watch and you're like, oh my god, I ran that whole time and didn't even think about it... You have motor learning principles of motor learning.”

“You have to have the activation energy to get into a doctor... it becomes longer to address those issues the longer you've had them... if you don't get good advice at the right time... not everybody has access to good advice at the right time.”

“He did one strength test on me, which was hip flexion strength... told me I was too weak, I shouldn't be trying to train for an Ironman. And I found that to be very insulting... he might see 40 to 50 patients that day and he doesn't have the time to delicately... understand my goals.”