Colorado Springs, CO

 “Japan’s Tsunami Sends Local Physical Therapist to Moscow”

PT to the Stars, Melinda Couch, to treat top athletes at World Figure Skating Championships!

 Event Details:

Melinda Couch, PT, will be serving as the expert US Team physical therapist at the Figure Skating World Championships in Moscow, April 24 – May 1.

Due to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, The Championship event slated for Tokyo, Japan was moved to Moscow. 

 Couch is the owner of Peak Performance Physical Therapy in downtown Colorado Springs. Since 2005 she has been chosen from a pool of 20 U.S. physical therapists to attend prestigious annual skating events. This is a tremendous honor and challenging responsibility.

 The elite of world-class figure skaters have been training for well over a year to compete on the world stage—and setting their sites on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. These dedicated athletes skate a grueling 3-5 sessions per day 6 days per week, and do off-ice training such as strength training, ballet, Pilates, and yoga.

 Melinda Couch, PT will be with our U.S. Figure Skaters at every jump and spin—helping them avoid injury—or quickly healing their pain if they get hurt.

About Melinda Couch:

Melinda Couch

Ms. Couch has served as a physical therapist for US Figure Skating since 1999 when she worked at Skate America at the Colorado Springs World Arena. She also traveled to Korea in 2005, Slovenia in 2006, Tokyo World Championships in 2007, Los Angeles World’s in 2009, The Hague for the Junior World’s in 2010, and Moscow be her third World Championship event. She presented at the 2008 US Figure Skating’s Sports Congress meeting at the US Nationals on treatment of common figure skating injuries. She served on US Figure Skating’s Sports Sciences team performing musculoskeletal evaluations and testing to aid in the prevention of injuries, and athletic performance.

She has had the privilege of working with an impressive list of skaters over the past 13 years, including such notables as:

• Sasha Cohen (Olympic silver medalist 2006 in Torino, US National Champion)
• Evan Lysacheck (Olympic Gold medalist in Vancouver 2010, 2009 World Champion, US National Champion)
• Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto (Olympic silver medalists in Torino 2006)
• Meryl Davis and Charlie White (Olympic silver medalists in Vancouver 2010)
• Rachell Flatt of Colorado Springs (Olympic team member in 2010 and US National Champion 2010)
• Ryan Bradley of Colorado Springs (US Champion 2011)
• Jeremy Abbott (Olympic team member 2010 and US National Champion 2009 and 2010)

 Melinda is the owner of Peak Performance Physical Therapy with two clinics. The main location in downtown Colorado Springs is near Colorado College, where the staff specializes in treating all age patients for acute and chronic pain and post-operative complications. They also offer a wide range of healing services such as therapeutic Pilates, the Feldenkrais Method, lymphatic drainage massage, craniosacral therapy and more. She has another clinic inside the World Arena Ice Hall for treating figure skaters on-site.