Dr. Rachel Selman PT, DPT, CSCS, CPSS

Bad day to be a hater 😜 There are moments in your career that feel almost impossible to put into words. This is one of them.

I’m incredibly honored to have been selected as the 2026 NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year 🏆

The National Strength and Conditioning Association is a global leader in strength and conditioning, representing coaches, researchers, clinicians, and performance professionals from all over the world. To be recognized by an organization that has shaped so much of my own career that houses so many insanely qualified professionals is something I’ll never take for granted.

I don’t know that many of us would have imagined someone whose work centers around pelvic health receiving this type of recognition in the strength and conditioning world, given that for so long we’ve relegated pelvic health as a non-athlete issue for so long. But now? Progress. Change.

This is a reminder that pelvic health isn’t separate from performance. It isn’t just a postpartum conversation. It’s sports medicine. It’s strength and conditioning. It’s athlete care. And it’s becoming increasingly recognized as an essential part of helping athletes perform, recover, and stay in the sports they love.

I’m grateful to every athlete who has trusted me, every mentor who challenged me to think differently, every colleague who has collaborated instead of competed, and every person who has helped move this field forward. This recognition belongs to all of you too.

I’m honored to be heading to New Orleans this summer to accept this award, and even more excited about what it says for the future of our field. And - if you nominated me - I’d love to thank you whoever you are!

📸: Cord Hodnett

A year ago, this existed as a collection of ideas, notes, highlighted papers, and chapters scattered across dozens (hundreds?) of documents.

Today, I’m finishing editing the entire book from beginning to end for what is for all intents and purposes the last time.

Very strange feeling reading it all at once after spending the past year living in one chapter at a time. For the first time, I got to experience it the way all of you eventually will. And I have to admit…I’m really proud of it.

I wanted to write the book I needed as an athlete, well before I ever became a pelvic health physical therapist. One that respected the science without pretending we had all the answer, one that challenged outdated ideas while remaining grounded in evidence based practice (which is not just research studies, but includes athlete preferences and outcomes). I wanted to write a book that coaches, clinicians, and athletes could all pick up and actually want to keep reading.

Mostly, I wanted to make pelvic health accessible and to move the conversation beyond pregnancy and postpartum and into the places where athletes perform - the track, the weight room, the field, and the everyday pursuit of performance.

Gosh I’ve done my best to get it right. I hope this field keeps evolving. Every page had the same goal: to help more people understand their bodies. This wasn’t about having all the answers, but to make better conversations possible.

I can’t wait for you to read it.

I heard the cool kids are doing Strava overlays

Most technically challenging course I’ve ever done at the WWC (check out those tree roots 😵) but while it wasn’t a PR it’s the strongest I’ve ever felt. I’m usually crawling across the finish line on these, but today the last 3 miles felt SO much stronger than the first 3 which is so encouraging wrapping up a 42 mile week for week 1 of marathon training. 19 more to go 😜 3rd in my age group + 9th female overall is never something I thought I’d see on trails, so I’m very very pleased with my progress out here!

Also if you’re the lady who saw me face plant at mile 9 PROMPTLY after passing you when you said “looking strong”….I thought about you saying that for the last 4 miles 😂 I could not have chosen a more inopportune time to eat s**t. Thank you for helping me laugh it off even though my whole gel squished out of my hand 😭 Thankful for healthy knees and a resilient body that didn’t seem to mind 😅

I can’t remember exactly who I saw the “gardens I’ll tend to” line from… Julie | DPT | Guide for Women in their “What Now?” Era was it you?? I feel like it was you.

I know I have a lot of really big stuff happening in the next 5 months. 2 national conferences, my book coming out, hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon, teaching ConEd, treating patients on a calendar that now backs up to September, and navigating summer break with 2 young kids that have 2 working parents. That’s…a lot.

But being forced to be so involved with those very real and very exciting tasks also helps me feel so intertwined with the progress being made which has always been and will always be the goal of this page. We’ll rest after the Indy Marathon 😅

So instead of hills I’ll die on (because I have way too many of those), here are some gardens I’m tending to.

One of the biggest misconceptions in healthcare is the idea that expertise is scarce (it’s not).

The best clinicians I’ve met don’t all think alike. They don’t use the exact same cues, interventions, assessments, or treatment progressions. Yet many of them produce excellent outcomes.

That doesn’t mean anything goes - foundations are critical. But within those foundations, there is room for clinical reasoning, creativity, experience, and different perspectives.

For athletes, this can feel confusing because social media often turns professional disagreement into a competition. It can create the impression that if two qualified people disagree, one of them must be wrong.
The reality is usually much less dramatic.

If you’re looking for help, find someone qualified that you trust. Give yourself permission to stop consuming every opinion on the internet and comparing it to the treatment plan you’re going through.

And for those of us working in this space: no single person owns it. None of us got here alone. The field is stronger when more thoughtful people contribute to the conversation - so if you’ve been thinking about contributing but feel like you’ll never measure up to those who have been here longer, here’s your permission. Speak up. Get your thoughts out there. And keep doing amazing things being boots on the ground 🫡