The world of recovery has seen countless gadgets promising to solve chronic pain, but few emerge from the direct experience of treating hundreds of complex cases over decades. Christine Koth’s journey began in a private practice clinic where paying clients arrived after exhausting traditional treatments—insurance-covered physical therapy, medications, even surgeries—yet remained in pain. These were people carrying decades of discomfort who needed someone willing to be a detective.

Working alongside seasoned manual therapists, Koth developed an acute understanding of how muscle tension drives postural dysfunction and impacts every aspect of movement. Her hands learned to feel what others missed, and her results spoke louder than any marketing campaign ever could. But there was a problem: she could only help so many people, and her schedule was already stretched to its limits.

The Birth of Aletha

Koth’s path to entrepreneurship and Aletha’s began with a deeply personal mission inherited from her grandmother, who taught her that making the world better required generosity and practical action. Physical therapy provided the perfect vehicle for this purpose, allowing her to build meaningful relationships with clients while addressing their deepest physical challenges.

Her private practice experience proved crucial. Unlike hospital-based physical therapy, her clients were often paying out of pocket for specialized care. They represented the most complex cases—people who had tried everything conventional medicine offered without success. This environment forced Koth to think differently, to look at each person as a puzzle requiring a unique solution rather than a standard protocol.

The breakthrough came through her focus on the iliacus muscle, one of the two muscles comprising the hip flexor complex. Koth observed that when this particular muscle held tension, it created a cascade of alignment issues throughout the body. Release that tension, and clients would experience immediate changes, including better posture, reduced pain, and improved movement patterns. The challenge was that traditional tools like foam rollers and lacrosse balls couldn’t reach this muscle effectively. It required the specific angle and pressure that only her trained hands could provide.

Faced with a waiting list of people who needed help and her physical limitations, Koth began experimenting. She tried everything from remote controls to wooden spoons, searching for objects that could replicate the angle and pressure her fingers delivered. Eventually, this led to a 3D-printed prototype in the form of a simple plastic tool that clients could use at home. When people paid $200 for what was essentially a blob of plastic and thanked her for it, she knew she had discovered something significant.

Her husband, Shridhar, recognized the potential immediately. Having experienced the tool’s effects on his knee pain, he understood its life-changing power. Together, they co-founded Aletha, combining Christine’s clinical expertise with Shridhar’s business acumen. They approach their work with deep appreciation for finding the right partner and a shared commitment to spending their lives creating meaningful impact.

Tools That Transform Movement

Aletha’s product suite addresses the most critical muscles for maintaining proper alignment and movement quality. Each tool targets specific anatomical structures that traditional recovery methods struggle to reach effectively, providing fitness professionals with precise instruments for helping clients move and feel better.

The Mark is Aletha’s flagship innovation—the first tool specifically engineered to release tension in the psoas and iliacus muscles. These two separate muscles form the hip flexor complex, and their proper function affects everything from core stability to foot positioning. The tool’s patented design allows users to penetrate each muscle at the optimal angle, delivering the kind of targeted release that previously required skilled manual therapy. When these muscles function properly, they provide the foundation for strong, aligned, and mobile movement patterns.

The Range focuses on upper body tension, particularly targeting the suboccipital muscles and trapezius areas where stress and poor posture create chronic tightness. This tool proves especially valuable for clients dealing with headaches, neck pain, and shoulder dysfunction. Its design allows for precise pressure application to areas that are difficult to address with conventional stretching or foam rolling.

The Orbit focuses on glute and hip flexor releases. I got to try each tool, and as someone who has suffered for almost two decades from chronic pain from a coccyx injury, The Orbit has become my new best friend.  Each tool in the collection works synergistically with the others, creating a comprehensive approach to muscle tension release that fitness professionals can implement with their clients.

For trainers and coaches, these tools are a game-changing addition to their practice. Many fitness professionals encounter clients with chronic pain or movement limitations but lack the training or licensing to provide hands-on manual therapy. Aletha’s tools bridge this gap, allowing trainers to help clients address muscle tension without crossing professional boundaries. The tools can be incorporated into warm-up routines, used as part of corrective exercise programs, or recommended for home use to maintain the benefits of training sessions.

The pre-movement application proves particularly powerful. Using these tools before exercise helps ensure that clients begin their workouts with proper alignment and muscle function. This foundation improves exercise effectiveness, reduces injury risk, and enhances overall training outcomes. Clients experience better movement quality, which translates to more productive sessions and stronger long-term results.

Final Thoughts

Christine and Shridhar’s work has created life-changing tools for those who experience body pain and for those who want to move better. By addressing the muscle tension that creates movement restrictions and pain patterns, fitness professionals can unlock their clients’ true potential in ways that no amount of additional training volume can achieve.

When people move without pain, when their bodies function as integrated systems rather than collections of tight, disconnected parts they live better. This understanding changes the role of fitness professionals from exercise instructors to movement facilitators, giving them tools to create lasting change in their clients’ daily lives.

About Elisa Edelstein
Elisa is a curious and versatile writer, carving her niche in the health and wellness industry since 2015. Her lens is rooted in real world experience as a personal trainer and competitive bodybuilder and extended out of the gym and on to the page as a writer where she is able to combine her passions for empowering others, promoting wellness, and the power of the written word.