Gain the confidence and Clarity You Need.

An Engaging Virtual Summit

Clinical practice is hard.

Conflicting information can leave you feeling lost.

With the endless amount of conflicting research and dogmas, clinicians are feeling frustrated and confused about how to help their patients. The CALU summit is your solution to help you gain confidence and clarity with key rehab principles including ExRx, Pain Science, and Communication.

Gain confidence in your clinical practice.

Find your path to success

I'm a Clinician

I'm a Student

Event Details

Sep 30th - Oct 2nd

The Hottest Virtual Play Date of The Year.

If you want a complete outline of the summit weekend, you can download our Event PDF below which covers everything in detail. Otherwise, read on for more details!

Download the Event PDF!

You will not find another event in our industry quite like the CALU Summit. Why is that? It starts with the learning environment we foster. The CALU Summit is not another passive-didactic educational event where you are lectured at all weekend. We believe in bi-directional and active learning, grounded in our values of: humility, critical thinking, and openness.

From the CALU team to our speakers, the leaders of this event role-model these values, creating a powerful learning environment that feeds off of constructive conversations, constructive challenges, and collaboration. We believe that this is the secret sauce for truly deep learning, as well as creating an extremely engaging and fun experience for everyone involved.

This three day weekend event will go deep covering three of the most common presentations across MSK rehab:

Low Back Pain Rehab
Hip Pain Rehab
Shoulder Pain Rehab

The sessions are designed intentionally to help link key principles that build over the weekend. While these populations might seem specific, the lessons learned will undoubtedly transcend into your overall treatment approach. Each population is broken up into two sessions: one focusing on Communication and Psychosocial Considerations, and the other focusing on Exercise Prescription through a BPS lens. We believe that high value MSK care is grounded in excellence in these two domains, hence the focus. While they are “seperated,” our speakers collaborate to ensure consistency and shared themes that build from session-to-session, and day-to-day, leaving attendees with key takeaways from the weekend.

Each session is designed to be informative, yet engaging, and most importantly, inspire deep critical thinking for group breakout sessions. The sessions run as follows:

Lecture (35’)
Case Study 1 + Critical Thinking Prompts (10’)
Breakout sessions (15’)
Q&A (5-15’)
Case Study 2 + Critical Thinking Prompts (10’)
Breakout sessions (15’)
Q&A (5-15’)

SO, If you want to:

Improve your confidence with communication skills, exercise knowledge, and critical thinking in MSK rehab
Improve your ability to provide high value care in MSK rehab
Connect with passionate, dedicated, and inspiring MSK providers and students
Make a positive impact on the MSK industry

Then this summit is for you.

I'm a Clinician

I'm a Student

Our Speakers

Sam Spinelli

Sam is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Strength & Conditioning Coach located in Kelowna BC Canada. Sam is co-founder of E3Rehab & Citizen Athletics. Sam works with a wide range of individuals, from those competing on the Olympic stage, to those just trying to return back to activities of daily living. In addition to work, Sam is a husband and father, as well as a leading cake aficionado.

Contact: thestren[email protected]

Claire Zai Claire is a Strength & Conditioning Coach located in the PNW, as well as a competitive powerlifter, ranking in the top 5 of her weight class in the country. Claire is a member of the Barbell Medicine Team, and is committed to helping make strength training accessible for all humans, but especially females.

Lindsey Plass Lindsey received her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Northwestern University in 2012. After she graduated, Lindsey worked at the University of Chicago Medicine for two years before moving to Baltimore in 2014 to begin an Orthopedic Physical Therapy Residency. She then moved back to Chicago and completed the University of Chicago Medicine Orthopedic Manual Therapy Fellowship in 2019. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists. She is an avid marathon runner and long course triathlete. It was her own hip journey that sparked her interest in helping others with hip issues get back to doing the things they love. IG: plassptperformance twitter: LindseyPlassDPT email: [email protected]

Mike Reiman

Mike is an associate professor of physical therapy at Duke University Medical Center. As a clinician, Dr. Reiman has over 25 years of experience in assessing, rehabilitating, and training clients at various levels of ability. Mike has written four orthopedic books, as well as over 10 book chapters on orthopedic examination/intervention and training. He has also written over 100 peer-reviewed articles in sports and currently serves on the editorial board, and is a reviewer for multiple orthopedic and sports related journals. He continues to practice clinically on various sports and orthopedic-related injuries. He is the founder of Rehab Learning Center, LLC; an education company for healthcare students and providers. Contact: IG: @michaelreiman

Chris Juneau Chris Juneau is a Sports Residency, Fellowship, and Performance Trained Doctor of Physical Therapy with a Specialization in Athletic Performance, a Masters of Philosophy in Biomechanics (in progress), and a Certification in Strength & Conditioning currently with the US Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Chris has spent 11 years of practice in Ohio, Kentucky, Texas , New Zealand, Colorado, and North Carolina working in a variety of sports medicine, collegiate, and professional avenues. He now serves the US Army Special Operations Command directive as a Physical Therapist and performance coach along with other educational roles, including the membership chair for the AASPT’s Sports Performance Enhancement SIG. He continues and enjoys his current role as lecturer, mentor, and consultant, which also includes a leadership role with the Academy of Sports Physical Therapist, and a variety of research agendas. He has published educational content for multiple journals, books, and online learning material, and remains extremely active with professional development and coursework. Email: [email protected]

Sam Oft Sam Oft is a Doctor of Physical Therapy in Florida, primarily working with performance arts athletes. Sam has extensive clinical experience working with Cirque Du Soleil and now runs her own clinic, Next Level in Orlando, helping this population receive top level care and return to performance successfully.

About CALU

Coming Together

Change may begin at the individual level, but larger scale moves require the collective effort of a like-minded group of people. We are pooling our efforts and welcoming any and all open minded and motivated individuals to be a part of this movement, with the goal of becoming a tempered, but radical force in the mission to drive positive change in healthcare and set a new standard in the clinical and coaching worlds.

Community Driven:

You are not alone in feeling frustrated, confused, and eager to take steps towards a better future for your patients and clients, but not knowing where to start. We have created and will continue to cultivate a community of genuine, humble, and determined individuals that are not afraid to challenge themselves, are open to being wrong, and will not stop until they see things change for the better. It may start with individual small scale, local impact, but you’d be surprised how that can trickle outward and reach the masses. That is the ripple effect we aim for.

Evidence Informed

Evidence is our fuel. We can no longer ignore the research that highlights the ongoing chronic pain epidemic and the astronomical spending that goes into potentially preventable ailments. We cannot ignore the data that show the high utilization of low value interventions and poor long term outcomes, including reinjury rates and failed surgeries.

We are here to demand more from ourselves and others in our professions so that we can see these data trend in a positive direction in the future.

Changing the Game:

The drive to make a positive impact on the clinical and coaching worlds, and to ultimately drive large scale change in healthcare is not something we take lightly. We aim to do better as we know better, and this summit is one such way that we will practice what we preach.

We are going to provide a very different experience than a traditional continuing education course. We are going to challenge our biases and beliefs, have really difficult conversations, entertain new ideas, and set the stage for possibly doing things a bit differently once we leave this summit. We are going to work through all of this TOGETHER, and make sure that conversations do not reside in echo chambers, but rather, entertain various theories and opinions, and stimulate deep discussion. Our hope is that you look back on this event and see it as something that was truly impactful and instrumental in your development as a human and clinician/coach. Above all else, we want you to leave us feeling invigorated and motivated to lead the charge as an evangelist of positive change.

Are you in?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret

Our Testimonials

“The Clinical Athlete and LevelUp Initiative teams exceeded all expectations with the CALU summit. The environment they created fostered amazing networking opportunities because everyone was included and felt welcome to speak up. Sometimes being at a conference with your heroes can be intimidating. The event made it feel okay to be vulnerable and admit what you don’t know while helping you through the learning process!”

“Personally, an event like CALU isn't just about learning and brain gains. It's also about all the passionate people that you meet who inspire you to be better and do better. People aren't just here to fulfill CEU requirements. It's the people who care and want to make a change in the profession. It's a movement!”

“The CALU Summit was one of the best continuing education experiences I have had in months. Even going virtual, the presenters were engaging and clearly care about their content. This summit was important to me in developing additional communication skills and addressing the exercise prescription parameters that I feel PT education is lacking. As a new grad/early clinician, this summit is a MUST!”