Heather Gansel created Ask Doctor Heather around a simple idea: athletes should understand why their bodies hurt, rather than merely how to relieve the pain temporarily.

As a movement specialist and performance educator, Heather helps athletes and active adults identify movement imbalances, address recurring pain, and build more resilient bodies through virtual coaching, corrective programming, and education.

That education-led approach extends well beyond her client sessions. Heather shares content on movement, injury prevention and performance across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, helping people understand their bodies whilst building trust with prospective clients.

The challenge is producing enough content.

'If I’m trying to put out nearly 42 pieces of content a week, there’s no way I can set aside time to record videos in bulk alongside my full-time job, seeing clients and doing everything else,' Heather said.

With HeyGen, she doesn't have to.

Creating a consistent video presence from a single photo

Creating polished video used to mean getting camera-ready, finding time to film, writing scripts and sending footage to a video editor.

Heather discovered HeyGen after watching another creator demonstrate an AI avatar. Impressed by how hard it was to tell the AI version apart from the real person, she decided to try it for herself.

She began with a still photo and provided video clips so HeyGen could recreate her voice and movements.

​‘I was very impressed by how it animated my whole self,’ Heather said. ‘It used my actual voice, which I really liked as well. I thought, “Right, this is really good.”’

Heather now uses her avatar for presenter-led videos and can add B-roll, exercises, captions and other visual elements without filming every segment herself.

Produce days' worth of content in under an hour

Heather has incorporated HeyGen into a wider AI-powered content workflow.

She uses Claude to analyse existing content, identify topics and keywords, and help write scripts. She then brings those scripts into HeyGen to quickly turn them into videos.

​‘In less than an hour, I can have almost three days’ worth of content prepared, scheduled and ready to go,’ Heather said.

That speed makes a demanding publishing schedule possible. Heather has increased her Instagram cadence from one morning Reel to as many as three Reels throughout the day, organising content around weekly themes such as lower back pain.

She still films herself for demonstrations where showing a precise technique matters. HeyGen handles more of the educational presenter-led content that fills the rest of her schedule.

​And Heather hasn't seen any drop in engagement when her avatar takes her place.

'It doesn't matter whether it's HeyGen or me personally,' she said.

Heather says no one has identified the videos as AI-generated, and friends she has shown them to have been surprised to learn they were not actually filmed.

'They’re like, wow, this is really impressive. I’d never have known it wasn’t you unless you’d told me,' Heather said.

Establishing trust before the first conversation

For Heather, creating more content isn't simply about filling up a social media calendar. It allows prospective clients to understand her expertise before deciding whether to work with her.

Her YouTube channel already generates a significant amount of demand. Heather estimates that nearly 50% of her leads come from YouTube, often after people have watched several educational videos.

‘They’ve taken in quite a few videos,’ Heather said. ‘They think, “Right, she definitely knows her subject. She’s teaching us.” Then they get in touch.’

Consistent video content gives Heather more opportunities to explain movement patterns, correct misconceptions, offer injury-prevention advice and help athletes understand their bodies before they even speak to her.

HeyGen makes it possible to create those points of contact without taking time away from existing clients.

Create more without paying for each video

HeyGen have also changed the economics of Heather's content production.

Previously, she worked with a professional video editor who charged roughly $175 to over $200 for a single video. Heather still provided the script, storyboard direction, B-roll suggestions and other creative input before the editor put together the final product.

At that cost, producing as many videos as she wanted simply wasn't practical.

With HeyGen, she says the cost is ‘still a fraction of what I was paying just for a video editor’.

She can now produce educational content at the scale her strategy requires, whilst maintaining a consistent voice, appearance, brand and message.

Next, Heather wants to extend the same workflow beyond short-form social content to adverts and longer YouTube videos. In the longer term, she sees a broader opportunity: making more of her expertise available to people who may not be able to work with her one-to-one.

For Heather, that’s the promise of sharing her knowledge more widely without placing further demands on her schedule.

‘You can’t see everybody,’ she said.