‘‘I have lived with pain for as long as I can remember physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Growing up with a facial birthmark, vision issues, and a visible surgical scar made me an easy target for bullying. I also struggled with my weight from childhood and was introduced to dieting and exercise before I was old enough to understand either. For years, movement felt tied to shame: something I had to do to make myself smaller, more acceptable, or worthy of belonging.

In college, ice hockey remained one of the few places where I still felt connected to myself. Around that time, I discovered structured strength training and learned what it meant to fuel my body rather than punish it.

As I became stronger, my relationship with my body began to change. For the first time, my choices felt empowering rather than defeating.

That transformation shaped the coach I would become.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Movement Science and began learning the foundations of strength and conditioning under Coach Brandon Bedinger. His belief that effort mattered more than natural talent resonated deeply with me. I earned my CSCS credential and, once given the opportunity to coach, I quickly realized I had found the work that made me come alive.

Over the next decade, I devoted myself to understanding the human experience through strength, movement, psychology, recovery, and trauma. I became known as the coach who would commit to figuring it out. Even when I did not immediately have an answer, I cared enough to keep searching for one.

My own body continued to become one of my greatest teachers.

Years of strongman, powerlifting, ice hockey, football, and snowboarding brought capability, but also back pain, labral tears, surgeries, and long periods of rehabilitation. I have experienced what it feels like to lose strength, movement, confidence, and even the connection between the mind and a muscle and then slowly rebuild them.

Those experiences changed the way I understand healing. Progress is rarely linear. Pain is never purely physical. And the right support, information, and purposeful inputs can dramatically change someone’s outcome.

I have lost weight and gained weight. Lost strength and rebuilt it. Lost ability and rediscovered it.

Through it all, I have remained amazed by the mind and body’s capacity to heal, reconnect, and transform.

That is why I created Ursa Strength: to give people a safe place to explore challenge, rebuild trust in themselves, and discover what they are truly capable of.’’

-JESS BUCKLEY.