What happens when you combine the expertise of a physical therapist who has a passion for helping her patients, with an engineer who loves to solve problems? You get an effective product like Physioboard!

For years, Dr. Shelly Karbowski, a licensed physical therapist with 30 years of experience, searched for a way to help her patients continue their stretching and prescribed exercises at home effectively. She watched in frustration as many patients stopped doing their exercises and negated their progress because they couldn’t get up and down from the floor comfortably or were physically unable.

Beds are too soft to be effective surfaces for exercising and stretching, while exercise tables are heavy and hard to manage, and take up floor space. During a family Thanksgiving dinner, she shared her frustrations and some ideas with her brother Alan.

Alan Porter is a mechanical engineer, and although he works in the automotive industry, he loves to tinker and come up with original designs and solutions to problems. Wanting to help his sister and take on a new challenge, he began to research and experiment with different materials. Eventually he found a lightweight, sturdy material that fit the bill. With some modifications, the addition of foam for comfort, and a lot of trial and error, PhysioBoard was born.

Shelly asked many of her patients to try prototypes along the way and received rave reviews. It was the solution that she and her patients had been looking for!

Now Physioboard is a family affair that includes their mom and several adult children helping to manufacture, ship and market the product. In fact, there is a little love included in every board!