ABOUT PILLAR

  • A woman with wavy brown hair and blue eyes taking a selfie indoors, sitting near a window with a cat sleeping in the background.

    Kate Staiger

    STRENGTH DIRECTOR + FOUNDER

    Read Bio
  • A person lifting a barbell with weights during a workout at the gym.

    You?

    We are currently seeking 1-2 other Movement Practitioners to host their own clients or share their specialized movement approaches with our community.

    More Info in September 2025

Whole Body Strength requires a deeper dive than what most “fitness” spaces can offer…

  • Mountain range at sunset with pink and purple hues, clouds around the peaks, and clear sky above.

    In the last 10 years, I’ve refined my approach after working with so many people seeking strength in their bodies, fighting chronic pain or trying to establish better habits for healthy living.

  • Frosty tall grass and weeds in a foggy field with trees barely visible in the background.

    The refinement began with a shift away from targeting "site-specifics" and towards a whole body, integral approach.

  • Abstract sculpture made of white, curving, ribbon-like shapes with smooth surfaces

    The Human Body works in systems and patterns to help us move in the world. As we continue to learn more about the body’s capacity, it’s becoming quite clear that interconnectedness of our body’s systems are at the forefront of approaches to healthy living, treatment pathways + movement.

  • Calm lake with small ripples and distant, hazy green mountains under a pale, overcast sky.

    We’re complex beings in a very sophisticated body, so let’s design programming frameworks that match that.

  • Close-up view of sand dunes in a desert

    Our philosophy for building Whole Body Strength names 4 key Pillars that act as guide posts for framing everything we do + learn as we continue to build our whole physical body. These pillars are rooted in movement science, neuroscience, psychology + the latest understandings in ‘wholistic’ care.

THE 4 PILLARS

These pillars were developed with careful consideration of the most essential traits that make strong, resilient people. By design, we can always grow/shift in any of these components of strength — and once we step onto this path, the growth trajectory is limitless.

For most of us, we come to this work with a Health need…whether it’s to build strength in our movements, target chronic pain/stress, rehabilitate an area or lose body fat.

After being in the Strength Space for over 25 years, it’s become abundantly clear, to me anyway, that in order to build it, you have to create the right type of environment within to support the work we do in the studio.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out our Thought Catalogue. It’s a 4 Pillars deep-dive and you just might find it interesting…and helpful.

  • We live in a LOUD time – it’s filled with distractions. And those distractions (mainly those engineered by Media, Industrial Food, Industrial Medical Complex, etc) steal your attention and your ability to attune to your body’s sophisticated, native technologies. 

    Power + Strength come from self-awareness. When we sharpen our proprioception + interoception as an integral part of the traditional Strength Training Process, we find the Body-Mind Connection is not only valuable – it is THE AXIS that leads us deeper and closer to our highest self. 

  • Energy In:

    What do you put in your body? How is your current state fueled? Do you rest when you need to? How’s your sleep? Do you know what nourishes you? How’s your connection to food? Does stress own you or do you manage the inputs (hello, boundaries).

    Energy Out:

    How do you use energy? How much do you move daily? Do you exercise? Do you actively build relationships? Do you have excess energy that builds as tension +/ has become chronic pain? 

    We consider Energy from the logical perspective: Food.

    We also consider energy from the less-obvious, though more consequential perspective, of your emotional + mental set-points: What subconscious hunger is presenting itself in your habits? What choices are you making to harmonize, or sabotage, your Energy Balance? (yes, choices are movements, too) 

  • Our body consists of trillions of tiny movement patterns that articulate every second of the day to allow for us to move in the world. While our programming focuses primarily on the gross-motor patterns of: squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, we value and train strong movements within to maximize the movements in the environment.

    We use a “Wholistic” Movement Framework to specifically train:

    The Neuromuscular System: The neuromuscular system is the coordination of the nervous system and muscles that control movement, posture, and breathing

    Neuromotor Function: These activities demonstrate your levels of proprioception and include motor skills like coordination, agility, balance, and gait.

    Gross Motor Patterns: Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull, Press + Carry are what the human body typically articulates in everyday gross motor functioning.

    Interoception: This is the ability to sense and perceive internal bodily signals, such as heart rate, hunger, and temperature. It's a collection of senses that can be conscious or subconscious, and it's considered a critical part of understanding how we feel in the moment.

  • We are natural beings who need to attune to the natural world by-design.

    Our bodies are hard-wired, by evolutionary adaptations, to grow with the natural rhythms of things.

    Our state-of-health is correlated with how much we walk outside. Our eyes (the outside-part of our brain), are filled with neuroreceptors that calibrate once they see the sun. Those eyes are also seeking inputs of flow through space, along with the inputs of fresh air to balance the Nervous System.

    The soles of our feet have 100s of mechanoreceptors to receive information from the ground – not concrete – soil! The electromagnetic waves from the earth are meant to be found by our feet and attune to them. (*grounding*, look it up)

    How we perceive the world around us, via our sensory systems, is a big part of our proprioceptive + interoceptive capacity. Those communication systems play a big part in our relationships, habits, ways of moving through this world.

    This is worth noting when we look at our states (and degradation in those states) of Health in our body. Stress, recovery + growth cycles are asking for a deeper look within us to give clues to how our bodies move on the surface and in the environment. Wherever we can, we seek to recalibrate these rhythms with this framework.