Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Granger.
Dr. Granger was born to educate, empower, and elevate others. From playing school as a child to coaching swimmers of all ages, to leadership positions and serving as swim team captain, it’s in her blood.
Her favorite word is “inspire” which she applies to herself, her friends, family, colleagues, and clients.
Convinced she lives life as a fish out of water, she began swimming competitively at age 6 and her love for the water quickly skyrocketed. She began competitive year-round swimming at Dynamo Swim Club in Atlanta, where she trained and competed for 14 years. She also ran competitively in high school and on her own in several 5K, 10K and half marathon races throughout high school, college, and graduate school.
Enjoying multiple accolades as a budding young swimmer both in Georgia and nationally, Dr. Granger continued to compete for the NCAA Division 1 varsity women’s swimming & diving team at Duke University. Unfortunately, her swimming career was cut short by a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery. She didn’t let this stop her. She continued coaching the Duke Swimming program as a Volunteer assistant and went on to coach the Emory University varsity men’s & women’s programs when she attended Emory for physical therapy school.
As she transitioned into the physical therapy profession, she wasn’t satisfied knowing that among her swimming cohort, injuries occurred without many physical therapists understanding the depth of what a swimmer needs not only to treat their injuries, but also to prevent them from happening in the first place. She set out to do just this as she embarked on her career.
Prior to founding PRISM, she practiced as a physical therapist at a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia where she had the opportunity to enrich her knowledge and skills in a niche practice setting while providing the highest levels of holistic care for each of her patients and clients. Prior to joining that practice, She worked exclusively with young athletes in the Sports Medicine Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. While in PT school, she completed comprehensive Pilates teacher training through Polestar Pilates. She utilizes Pilates-based movement re-education within her physical therapy treatments and taught youth and adult Pilates classes in the community.
While she enjoyed working with athletes and active families in the clinic, she couldn’t sit still knowing that many of her patients could have avoided physical therapy altogether, just as it could have been the case for her. She began to notice changes in her body, mind, and spirit that she attributed to many things she experienced as a younger female athlete. She attributed many of these changes as an opportunity for growth, and began to embody her new mind, body, and spiritual practices in her own clinical practice. She found that she wanted to inspire and empower others to take such an integrative and holistic approach with their own health and wellness. She also found that she wanted to work with young athletes and active families at the crossroads of all of her professional and personal interests, and set out to found PRISM in 2016.
Outside of the clinic, she finds other ways to live out her vision to inspire. She teaches in the Emory University Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, directing doctoral students who perform research on the integrative health of young and female athletes. She has lectured on the female athlete and the young athlete at national conferences for the American Physical Therapy Association. She recently published her first book, The Young Female Athlete’s Playbook, an e-book that details top research, health and wellness tips for providers, parents, coaches, and young female athletes themselves.
A little known impetus behind her vision for PRISM were her own health and wellness challenges that literally brought her personal and professional life to a screeching halt in 2015. A mysterious and debilitating illness soon illuminated a rare cancer diagnosis, sarcoma of the lung, which stimulated her own health and wellness overhaul alongside complex and innovative cancer treatments. She underwent chemotherapy, two surgeries, radiation therapy and months of rehabilitation in addition to reinventing her diet and lifestyle to be most supportive to both fighting and preventing cancer. And she is so grateful that she has succeeded in doing exactly that and proudly wears the “survivor” badge with honor. She uses her survivorship energy in her involvement with Swim Across America-Atlanta, a local swim charity that raises funds for the AFLAC Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Julie and PRISM both sponsor and support the event–she is the chair of the Junior Advisory Board, upon which she has the joy of mentoring and guiding young teen leaders through advocacy, fundraising, and nonprofit work. In 2016 she completed the event’s 1 mile swim just 5 weeks after undergoing cancer surgery. She was determined to swim in honor of more than herself and honor and memorialize those who were unable to swim due to cancer.
With the help of an extremely skilled medical, life & health coaching team, she learned how to transition from the go-getter/never stop lifestyle to the polar opposite, creating space and modeling self love and mindfulness for both herself and her patients through a personalized, comforting presence in PRISM’s boutique setting. Alongside founding PRISM, she is currently pursuing certification in women’s health coaching through the Integrative Women’s Health Institute, where she is also a faculty member lecturing on the young female athlete. She approaches her patients with a playful yet professional demeanor and interweaves her integrative health/life coaching and nutrition knowledge into her patient care.
Dr. Granger embodies the notion that the best way to inspire others is to be courageous and daring enough to better oneself. She continues to participate in swimming, cycling, hiking, Pilates, drawing and painting, playing outside, and meditation. She attributes her success to her own “helpers” and seeks regular physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, life coaching, professional mentoring and holistic medical care. She believes sometimes it truly takes a village to enhance health, wellness, and performance, and wishes to be a part of others’ villages to inspire them along their own journeys. She loves traveling and going on outdoor adventures with her husband Daniel and playing with her new lab pup, Raven.
PRISM Wellness Center – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Performance Rehabilitation and Integrative Sports Medicine is a safe haven for female athletes and their families to heal, learn, recover, and empower themselves to take ownership of their health and wellness.
I am a physical therapist and health/lifestyle coach, taking a broad and integrative approach to getting athletes and their families into a better life.
While I work with active people of all ages, I specialize in and am known for my niche specialty of working with young female (age 6-25) athletes who range from pediatric through young adulthood and are facing all of the challenging transitions that come along with that period of life. No case is “average” and every single person comes to me with a beautiful patchwork of a life and health story. I love hearing people’s stories and seeing not only how a young girl’s health and wellness have unfolded up until the point that I meet her, but also see how her health and wellness picture fits into the family story as well. I love empowering girls to take ownership of their health and also guide moms to learn how to facilitate health in not only their daughters, but also in themselves as well. That’s what I am most proud of: having a business model that doesn’t just address the injury or illness that the patient has currently, but also looks at the timeline and matrix of life that surrounds them.
What sets me apart? Well, I would say that my immense knowledge of the physiological, emotional, and social development of kids, teens, and ‘tweens combined with my ability to communicate and relate to girls in ways that are relevant, understandable, and empowering to them is one of my most prized services and skills. In our world where girls often fall behind or don’t know how to use their voices, their minds, and their bodies to their greatest potential, it is an honor to play a small role in their journeys to become strong, courageous, and empowered young women.
One other thing that sets us apart from others is health & lifestyle coaching for girls and moms. This is available as a remote/virtual service so that girls and families do not have to go out of their way, sit in traffic, or even leave the house for yet another appointment.
It also bridges the gap between much of the disconnect we see in our healthcare system all over the world. Medical and health providers, including physical therapists, often make recommendations but with limited time and high pressures in clinical settings, they often do not have the resources to ensure that patients follow through with their recommendations or orders. They also often don’t have the resources or ability to truly assess of the patient understands what has been recommended or if the patient is able to cope with and feel good about following through with these changes. Most importantly, coaching allows for an assessment of readiness to change. How often do people go to see their physician or other health provider, not have time to ask questions or use their voice, go home with a laundry list of things to do that they don’t really understand? Perhaps they may feel so overwhelmed that that don’t know where to start, and therefore don’t start making changes? Perhaps they are tired of getting opinion after opinion and don’t know who to believe? Or perhaps they just feel stuck: they have the knowledge, they have the resources, they have the motivation, but they don’t have the skills to materialize that motivation into action? That’s where coaching comes in, and especially for girls, it’s oh-so-important.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
When I realized and acknowledged that I had a hidden dream and an enormous potential to do something fabulous with my knowledge and skills, and that I was completely in charge of doing that in creating my own business. That translated then into having the courage to walk away from the mainstream medical and clinical world and the vulnerability to materialize that vision despite all of the pressure to stay within my previous comfort zone.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.prismwellnesscenter.com
- Phone: 470-231-9089
- Email: julie@prismwellnesscenter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prismwellnesscenter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prismwellnesscenter/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/julzthefish
- Other: buildstrongirls.com/shop
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
