Our Story

The Roots

The Dream

Knowing how much progress he made with just two years of consistent training, Kelton always wondered if he could have made his dream a reality if he had been able to stay injury-free during high school and early college.

Driven by this realization, Kelton decided that his new dream was to help as many runners avoid his mistakes as possible. From his own experiences, he knew that the key to running performance and longevity was consistency, and that injuries were the main thing that prevented runners from staying consistent.

He decided to pursue a degree in Physical Therapy with his eventual wife, Ashten, at the University of New England in 2014. Together, they spent seven years between undergrad and grad school, studying daily and collaborating on ideas.

Kelton’s goal was always to open a running specialty clinic that was operated for runners, by runners. After working for 3.5 years in a high-volume, insurance-based orthopedic and sports PT office, he grew frustrated with the traditional physical therapy model, which emphasized seeing multiple patients at once, making proper education and strength progressions impossible. At the end of 2020, he finally opened his own performance physical therapy clinic, Cullenberg Physical Therapy & Performance.

The Reality

The initial quick success of Cullenberg Physical Therapy & Performance allowed Ashten to join Kelton after just six months.

They quickly realized that the outcomes their clients were achieving with this new model were far superior to the outcomes that runners and active people would get at all of the previous in-network clinics they worked at.

With both parents having been teachers, Kelton realized that they could help many more runners throughout Maine and the United States if they were able to bring on and teach other Physical Therapists their methods.

This is when Steady State was officially born!

The Expansion

Within three years of inception, Steady State had grown to a team of five, with four PTs operating in the Portland, Maine location on Munjoy Hill.

Over the first 3-4 years, Steady State had directly worked with nearly 1,000 unique runners throughout Maine—with organic growth into the rest of the New England states and consulting clients all around the United States. We have always been humbled by how many runners have been willing to drive from 1-2 hours away to see us in person.

The Future

We're always innovating and planning – what's life without goals? Our goal is to help as many local runners achieve life-changing results as possible, believing it would be a disservice not to also spread this positive transformation around the world.

We believe that the majority of active people don't have access to good health information. They often don't feel empowered by the healthcare providers they've worked with, who frequently create environments where people fear movement. This should never be the case...our bodies are meant to move.

We want to empower runners to learn about their bodies and how they can better optimize them, helping them engage in all the physical activities they desire. By removing activity limitations, we're confident that people can live long, healthy, and fulfilling lives.

As the team continues to grow, Kelton has leaned into his visionary role, developing innovative and improved methods to help our local community and runners throughout the world. We're excited to share these new ideas with you as we continue to build and refine.

Welcome to Steady State. We're excited to have you here with us on this journey.