Your Spine Was
Built for
This Trail.
One Saturday morning. One honest assessment. Discover exactly what's holding your body back from the terrain it was made for.
127 patients back on trail this year
Pain You've
Learned to Carry.
The body is remarkably good at adapting. So good, in fact, that most people arrive here having lived with misalignment for years — calling it aging, calling it stress, calling it just how things are.
The Morning Inventory
You wake up and quietly assess: left hip or right today? The stiffness that takes three minutes to walk off has become so routine you've stopped noticing it's not normal.
Trail runners & desk workersThe Question Mark Spine
Eight hours at a standing desk that you mostly sit at. Your thoracic curve has hardened into something a topographic map would call a saddle ridge. Shoulders forward, chin out, breath shallow.
Software engineersThe Hip That Never Came Back
One baby, one dominant hip, eighteen months of carry. Your lumbar screams by noon. You've been told it's just part of it — but it isn't.
New mothersThe Shortened Stride
You used to float down technical descents. Now your SI joint fires a warning shot on anything steeper than 8%. You've shortened your Saturday long run without admitting why.
Weekend athletesNone of this is inevitable. It's structural — and structure can be restored.
"Your T4–T5 is locked in right rotation. That's why your left shoulder rides high."
Dr. Mara Hendricks, DCHands That Read
What Scans Miss.
Dr. Mara Hendricks spent three years working with a sports medicine team before opening Align. She developed the Terrain Assessment Protocol — a 45-minute hands-on evaluation that maps the exact subluxations affecting your movement economy.
She doesn't treat spines as engineering problems. She treats them as terrain — reading the compensations, the history written in muscle tone, the story your body has been telling itself since the first injury you walked off too quickly.
Years in practice
Spines assessed
Return to full activity in 8 weeks
The Trail Gets
Harder Before It Has To.
This isn't about fear. It's about terrain literacy. Understanding what's actually happening in your spine changes how you approach the fix.
A locked T-spine shortens your stride by up to 18%
When thoracic rotation is restricted, your hips can't fully counter-rotate. Every step costs more energy. Descents become bracing exercises. The trail gets shorter before your legs do.
Forward head posture adds 27 lbs of load per inch
At 3 inches forward — where most engineers sit by afternoon — your cervical spine carries the equivalent of a bowling ball for eight hours. Headaches aren't stress. They're physics.
A rotated pelvis steals your balance on uneven ground
One hip higher than the other means your center of gravity is perpetually compensating. Technical terrain feels treacherous. Stairs feel like obstacles. Your body is spending energy it could be using to move forward.
"The trail didn't get harder. Your spine just stopped cooperating."
— Dr. Mara Hendricks
Back on the
Terrain They Love.
Not curated highlights. Real patients, real complaints, real timelines.
I'd been telling myself the hip pain was just from sitting too much. Dr. Hendricks found a pelvic rotation I'd had for three years — probably since a fall I barely remembered. Six sessions later I ran my first 20-miler without bracing at mile 14.
Priya Narayanan
Software Engineer · Trail Runner
6 weeks · Trail Running
The assessment was unlike anything I'd experienced. She explained exactly what my thoracic spine was doing and why my left shoulder was always tighter. I went from daily ibuprofen to none in four weeks. My code reviews are better because I can actually think straight.
Owen Callahan
Senior Developer · Cyclist
4 weeks · Cycling + Desk Work
Eighteen months of carrying a baby on my right hip had completely rewired how I move. I couldn't do a downward dog without my lower back seizing. The Terrain Assessment found three separate compensations. I'm back teaching two classes a week.
Simone Beaumont
New Mother · Former Yoga Instructor
8 weeks · Yoga + Infant Care
Patients back on trail this year
Average patient rating
Report lasting relief at 6 months
Full Terrain Assessment time
Claim Your
Trail Assessment.
One Saturday morning. No commitment beyond showing up. Dr. Hendricks will spend 45 minutes reading exactly what your spine has been trying to tell you.
The Trail-Ready
Stretching Guide
7 targeted mobility sequences for the hip flexors, thoracic spine, and SI joint. Designed for the 15 minutes before your Saturday run.