Mission
Essential Strength’s mission is to provide the highest quality education and coaching available for athletes of all age shapes and sizes. Our passion is to help people safely and efficiently reach their health, performance, and fitness goals regardless of their sport or lifestyle.
Our vision is to build a community of practitioners who can, help, influence, and most importantly coach one another towards achieving our goals.
Our program is founded on the principle that true vitality is the result of maximum efficiency. We focus on regaining balance, both in sport and in life - the balance between work and play, tension and relaxation, stability and fluidity. We believe that virtually every athletic performance problem (and health problem) stems from a disruption of balance, or a disintegration of bodily systems. Our coaching helps athletes identify the roots of their problems and teaches exercises to allow the body to correct itself. The human body strives for efficiency of movement. As Theresa Nesbitt, the Movement Doctor, likes to say: “If you have a problems it is because you are putting on inappropriate brakes, or you are not giving enough gas...”. We teach athletes the tools necessary for maximum efficiency.
Since we focus on promoting efficiency, our training is centered on improving the body’s communication systems; most often the nervous system. We travel to the cutting edge of neuroscience research to bring back the secrets of truly explosive performance. While this may sound very high tech, we usually teach very common drills, but with a focus and precision that makes them truly remarkable.
I invite you to take some time and browse around this site. We offer tons of free information on our blogs ("Lou's Page" - "Theresa's Talking Points" - "Conor's Corner") and our monthly newsletter.
Read the Stories of our Movement Coaches below:
Lou McGovern, "Z Health" Master Practitioner , RKC, AKC
Lou McGovern is a former U.S. Marine, a lifelong athlete, an avid surfer & paddler, and an enthusiastic teacher. He is a Level 4 "Z Health" Movement Coach, and an RKC and AKC certified Kettlebell Coach. Lou founded Essential Strength to provide performance coaching to teach “average” athletes elite movement.
“If I had to describe my desire in one word, it would be FREEDOM. I love to move. I love to explore the possibilities of life. I have realized that any discomfort I may feel stems from a feeling of confinement. Through my study of human movement, I have learned that movement patterns become unconscious the more often we practice them (don’t believe me, imagine yourself brushing your teeth, I bet you always grab the toothbrush and get to work with the same hand, automatically). I began to understand that the patterns that I consistently used were creating the person that I was. Every habit, every mood, every persistent ache and pain, every addiction, was a result of the patterning that I was continually reinforcing with my movement, UNCONSCIOUSLY. I was giving up my freedom to choose how I wanted to be, and more importantly, how I wanted to perform, because I was unaware of the patterns that I was practicing.
As my understanding of the Central Nervous System and Motor Learning deepened, I Began to understand how every action that I took affected each and every system of my body. This understanding allowed me to develop strategies to destroy my unconscious patterns and replace them with only those that contribute to creating the outcomes that I desire, I have found freedom through focused movement practice and I am finally beginning to realize my athletic potential. 
Theresa Nesbitt, M.D., "Z Health" Master Practitioner, RKC II, ART Technician
Dr. Theresa Nesbitt is a movement specialist that uses dynamic joint mobility and neurological retraining to enhance athletic performance, prevent and rehabilitate injuries. She has special interest and expertise in sports vision and pelvis power for peak athletic performance, pelvic floor issues and low back pain.
She is a certified Russian Kettlebell Instructor RKC level I and II and "Z Health" certified trainer Level 4 with special training in Strength and Suppleness. She is certified in active release technique - a soft tissue manipulation for the treatment of sports related and overuse injuries.
Conor Hughes, "Z Health" Level 4
Hi, my name is Conor and I am a sports fanatic. I spend my time training, reading, and helping others achieve their goals; be it performance, body composition or pain related. Most of all I spend my time playing! As a young athlete I expended a lot of effort doing what my mentors and trainers told me to do. Initially this was great, I had a lot of success, however disaster struck when I was forced to spend most of my athletic career from 19-22 years old in rehab. During this time I tried everything imaginable. Unfortunately my injury list kept growing.
Borne out of disappointment and frustration I decided to travel around Europe and America hoping to learn and understand more about my body. During this time I had the opportunity to study with some amazingly talented people. One of these people was Dr. Eric Cobb, the founder and creator of Z-Health. Dr.Cobb explained to me that pain is simply just information, and the pain I was having was a symptom not a pathology. Simply put, just because my back had aches and pains didn't mean that there was something fundamentally wrong in my back. The same can be said for any other area of the body. During my study I came to realize that I had been missing the boat so to speak. If my shoulder was "tight" I would stretch it, if my hamstrings were "weak" I would load them with weight, if I had "pain" in my neck I would focus my attention there. This isolated view of the body is inefficient and outdated. Pain, weakness, stiffness, etc., in your body means one thing: you have a movement problem. Again, pain, weakness, stiffness etc is just information, your body's way of telling you that something that you are doing is wrong and you need to take action.
If there is one thing I do know, it is that I cannot outsmart your body. When you come to see me I don't relieve your pain, you relieve your pain, I just help you figure out why and how. I don't make you perform better, you make you perform better, I just help you. I don't change your body composition, you change your body composition, I just help you. I have learnt that in order to succeed it takes a mixture of personalities, talent, hard work and a bit of luck. Hopefully I can help you on your road to success. 