Dr. Eric – part 2: patient stories…

Over the past year, I became level 3 Neurokinetic Therapy certified, and continued to put in numerous hours studying NeuroKinetic therapy in conjunction with working alongside Dr. Dawn, this has made me feel the most confident in my diagnostic skills. The funny thing is that Neurokinetic therapy teaches you that there is always more to learn and you can always be a better therapist, which is exactly why I LOVE IT! Another reason why I love it is that the patients love it even more! Let me try and explain more in depth with some stories…

Photo by Del Adams on Pexels.com

I had a 17 year old male volleyball player that was having shoulder pain ever since he slid into the bleachers the previous year and came away with a small cut which eventually turned into a scar on his R shoulder. So I tested his R shoulder muscles that go into hitting a volleyball and they were all weak. Now, in the Neurokinetic testing protocol, scar tissue is always the highest priority for motor control and typically what needs to be addressed even before muscles, ligaments, or bones. Since the patient had that small scar on his R shoulder, I simply had him place the index finger of his left hand on the scar and retested the affected shoulder muscles again…they were all rock solid now. We completed some testing to figure out which way the patient needed to release the scar and then I provided one specific strength and one integrative interactive exercise to complete 2-3x per day for no more than 10 minutes at a time. I saw him that one time and texted him 2 weeks later to see how he was feeling. He said that he felt amazing and was serving harder and more accurately than he ever had. A simple scar was the entire issue.

Photo by Juan Pablo Arenas on Pexels.com

I had a patient that had been hit in the face by her sister when she was younger, around age 14, and she was now 28. Pt had been on anti-anxiety medications ever since high school and decided that she wanted to try going off of them because she felt like they were just putting her in a constant fog. She discontinued her medication and within a week was starting to feel terrible with headaches, light sensitivity, poor coordination and poor appetite from all of the other issues she was experiencing. After some digging through the patient’s history, she told me about the incident with her sister and I knew we were on the right track. I asked her about concussions, because there are 6 different muscles surrounding the eye and concussions or hard hits to the head can cause the eye muscles to become discoordinated and cause a whole slew of issues. After testing her eye muscles, we found that she needed to release her inner eye muscle and activate a muscle in her opposite eye in order to significantly improve all of her strength tests and balance. The patient was provided with a quick set of homework including eye muscle release with a Q-tip and some single leg balance and neck strengthening activities to complete afterwards and within a week the patient reported that she was not getting headaches anymore and she felt her light sensitivity was drastically reduced. The issue was caused by something that had happened to the patient half of her lifetime ago and had been affecting her overall balance and strength for 14 years before this simple eye correction!
Just to be clear I could go on for days about all of these amazing changes I have seen in patients over the last 2 years.

Photo by Sourav Mishra on Pexels.com

Lastly, I want to talk about my experience as a patient experiencing the Neurokinetic testing protocol to find the root cause of my dysfunctions. So I have been around motorcycles all of my life, and naturally when I moved out to California, I purchased a motorcycle. In my time here, I have put on thousands of miles driving to my home health patients and am always wearing full gear wherever I go. The only problem with this is that I have to wear a 5 pound helmet on my head everywhere. Well, I started noticing that I was getting some slight scoliosis in my upper back, my neck was always crunchy and I had a terrible forward head posture. Well who do you think I went to in order to find an answer to my problems? I set up a consultation with Dr. Dawn and she quickly found that my neck needed to be decompressed due to all of the riding I had been doing with a 5 pound helmet on my head. I am still working on the homework since I ride my motorcycle every day, but since starting the homework I have noticed a significant difference in the pain levels of my upper back, my posture is improved, and my spine is slowly migrating back to the place where it should be. My own experiences have taught me that all of our actions have consequences, and that is fine, but we need to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us and seek help sooner rather than later in order to prevent unnecessary degenerative changes.

I hope that my story and these few examples I shared in this post spark a curiosity in clients’ minds to come to Kinesis Movement Studio and work with me. I am dedicated to helping clients accomplish activities that are currently limited due to acute or chronic pain and/or immobility.

~Dr. Eric

Get to know Dr. Eric Walz, DPT!

     I am very excited and honored to be working at Kinesis Movement Studio in conjunction with Dr. Dawn in order to be a provider at what we consider one of the highest quality Physical Therapy practices in the area. Continuing education courses are actually what led me to this opportunity. After graduating from the Carroll University Doctoral program for physical therapy in 2016 with my wife, Cassie, I immediately moved out to California. Before officially moving out, we decided to take a trip out to Los Angeles to complete interviews and find housing. Well, we each had job offers within 3 days and went back home to Wisconsin for 3 weeks in order to pack up all of our things and make the trip again.

     So, I moved to Los Angeles to start a job at an outpatient clinic in Glendale where I showed up the first day to an evaluation and nobody else at the small clinic. After scrambling around in the front office for a piece of paper and a clipboard, I took the new client into a treatment room and began my first 1.5 years as the only physical therapist at a clinic with multiple rehab aides and physical therapist assistants whose actions I was responsible for. I feel like I really was “thrown into it” with that first job and absolutely no mentorship or quality physical therapists to bounce ideas off of. During my time at that first clinic, in 1.5 years, the therapy team and I were able to increase monthly numbers from 350 visits to upwards of 700 visits and we had to start looking for another physical therapist. I was doing something right with my treatment ideas, but I still had patients that were returning 3-4 months later with the same injury. I knew that there was more to be learned.

     Luckily, around this same time, I decided to take my third continuing education course and by far the most eye-opening, game changing decision I have ever made with my PT career. Being a new grad, I learned a very traditional muscle testing methods in school, and learned all of the body parts in different sections. The only problem with learning the body in different sections is that the body works as one, so just because one part is hurting does not mean that it cannot be affected by another area. NeuroKinetic Therapy (NKT) level 1 is the course that finally put all of my schooling together and really opened my eyes to just how interconnected the body is. That first day, my mind was blown by the teacher showing us how simply touching the affected spot on a patient can bring back the proper function of muscles that have been offline for days or even decades due to numerous possible contributing factors. The teacher showed us how bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons are all neurologically connected to the brain and can be “re-programmed” to be functioning at their full capacity through testing. Again, my mind was BLOWN!!! No more guessing about what may be causing the problem and waiting for multiple sessions of physical therapy just to find out if the exercises you have been doing are effective. No, with this NeuroKinetic therapy, the results were immediate and very evident. After a weekend filled with two 8 hour days of relearning how to test muscles and common patterns of dysfunction to look out for, I came home that night and decided I could not treat the same way I was before taking the course.

         (What is NeuroKinetic Therapy?)  

     Over the next month, I completely changed the way that I evaluated patients and started noticing that some patients with chronic issues were beginning to see relief for the first time in years. Fast forward 6 months, I had started working part time at the clinic in Glendale, I was working as a home health physical therapist for 10-15 hours per week and I had just started working with Dr. Dawn. At this time, I was level 2 Neurokinetic Therapy certified and I had been working on applying all of the knowledge I had learned including how compression of a joint can cause muscles to stop working properly or even lead to osteoarthritis. The level 2 course introduced how someones jaw and chronic TMJ issues can be related to their low back pain or how holding your breath is a good “cheat” for some people who are globally weak or want to make a muscle test stronger. I was at a point in my career where I finally felt like I was on the right track and connected with the right community in order to be a therapist I could be proud of…

Be on the lookout for the next post chronicling some of my patient successes!                     ~Dr. Eric

Saltwater Healing…

 

     This past week we attended a weeklong business-building conference in gorgeous Clearwater, Florida and the Gulf weather was amazing! A sweet warm breeze, sunshine, humidity and the occasional afternoon rain showers.  Tuesday afternoon’s landing immediately welcomed us with a wall of humidity that I haven’t experienced since living back home in Kentucky! 

     Wednesday morning was my first workout in the (really great) hotel gym at the Wyndham Grand Clearwater Beach*. Lots of open space, kettlebells, dumbbells, some weight machines, treadmills, ellipticals – yay! After nearly an hour of a solid warmup, strength training and some HIIT work on a treadmill, I was drenched in a salty layer of my own sweat. It was divine! And over the course of the week, I was enveloped in salty layer after salty layer via workouts, swimming in the ocean & even crying tears of heartache because my Mom used to visit Florida EVERY year… 

     All of these instances reminded me how many variations of salt are present in my life and how superbly beneficial they each can be.

The sweat of a good workout… 

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/a19973001/sweat-benefits/

The salt of the ocean…

https://www.thealternativedaily.com/benefits-of-salt-water-for-skin/

The benefits of epsom salt…

https://blog.paleohacks.com/epsom-salt/#

The tidal wave of tears from a good cry (or onions!)…

https://sciencenotes.org/chemical-composition-teardrop/

     So if you’re soaking in an epsom salt bath, crying during your favorite sappy movie, sweating it out at Kinesis or some other awesome workout or just spending time in one of our beautiful oceans — there’s no question that salt can HEAL so many things… 

     WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO USE SALT AS A HEALING TOOL?

 

 

* https://www.wyndhamgrandclearwater.com

Coach Kimmie – Sympathy & Empathy….

empathy [em-puh-thee] – noun

1.the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

 

2.the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself.

versus

sympathy [sim-puh-thee] – noun, plural sympathies.

1.harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.

 

2.the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions.

3.the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.

 

So, I’m sure that at some point in my life I was only able to be sympathetic to someone or something due to my inexperiences. But in the last few years, pain has definitely become a new friend that I didn’t necessarily invite to the party! This post from 2015 talks about one of my interactions with serious discomfort – PAIN…

And in the last year, I’ve had more run-ins with the Big P than I’d like to admit! September 17, 2016 was like any other Saturday. Teach in the morning until noon or so and then the afternoon was free. We were slated to go to the EatSeeHear outdoor movie to watch a showing of the epic movie, Purple Rain. And the following weekend, we were headed to Kauai!!

My view from the catamaran trip in Kauai… 

In general, the way I deal with my random levels of anxiety or other feelings of funk, is to do some kind of a fairly mindless workout. This day, I was kinda stressed about going where I knew there’d be TONS of people and so I decided to take a short run around our neighborhood. Truth be told, I was also feeling a bit overwhelmed and a little “less than” as a person… Either way, I needed to expend this bundle of energy somehow to guarantee I made it to the evening’s commitment with Dawn and friends. With phone in hand, knowing I’d only be out 20 minutes max, I kissed Dawn bye and headed out the door.

My first few minutes were hitchy, squirrely and anxiety-ridden. I pulled my sunglasses down so I would’t have any opportunity to make eye contact. 3-4 minutes later, I saw the CAYOOTEST (cutest) puppy with his owner and the little girl in me had to stop and say hello. The dog was sweet and the 2-3 minute interaction I had with the owner was literally life-changing. He was a young veteran, maybe 24, and had just come from his final session at Peak Brain Institute to help manage his PTSD. I was wearing my Catch A Lift tee shirt (Catch A Lift Fund – nonprofit for veterans) and we talked briefly about all the awesome ways veterans can now get help. I bid him and his adorable pup goodbye and went on my way…

…around the corner out of sight to have a seriously heaving, deep-down, WTF cry.

And then I continued on my run down the next neighborhood street and that’s when my life really shifted. My sunglasses (or my mindset) clouded my vision and I stepped on a magnolia bud on the sidewalk and went down. HARD. “Running at approximately 6 miles per hour” hard.

My sunglasses went flying. I skidded at least 8-10 feet on the cement. Immediate tears, fear and adrenaline pump. Thank goodness I didn’t smash my phone when I fell because after a few minutes of shock and assessment, I knew I wasn’t walking home. I could barely stand up. My left ankle was already swelling to an outrageous fatness and my elbow had blood dripping off it. It was sheer luck I didn’t smash my head on the ground. Dawn – thankfully – answered on the 2nd ring and drove the 1 street over to pick me up.  I was definitely in shock, was experiencing nausea, could barely hop to the car on one leg and was in a crap-ton of pain.

This was 6 days AFTER the initial fall. It was MUCH bigger…

As soon as we got in the house, the Home Depot bucket was full of ice and water and I was dunking my aching ankle and foot in for 5-6 minute bouts. HOLY OUCH! Even the icing hurt. Gratefully Dawn cleaned up my elbow and bandaged it for me, too. I continued the icing and elevating routine until around 8 or 9pm to hopefully decrease the swelling as much as possible. It definitely helped even though my ankle was still huge and started to bruise. I ate dinner, took some ibuprofen and it took me about 10 minutes to get up the stairs on the crutches to make it to bed. And remarkably, I slept pretty well!

When I woke around 5:30 that Sunday morning, I knew moving around was gonna suck. So I took my time, sat up on the edge of the bed and grabbed my crutches. Dawn was downstairs taking care of the dogs already. I put my phone in my pocket and made it to the foot of the bed before I started to feel “off”. Woozy, lightheaded, pukey – just plain bad. I called Dawn on my phone because I was too weak to call out her name. She came up immediately, handed me a trash can in case I got sick and that’s all I remember…

Apparently I experienced a ‘vasovagal syncope’ with a side of seizure. Basically the pain in my foot was so bad my brain said “Sit the f**k down or I’m taking you down!” And that’s what happened. Within 10 minutes, there were a lot of firefighters & first responders in my bedroom to carry my broken body down the stairs and into an ambulance to the hospital in Marina del Rey. Tons of tests and 3 days later, I came home with nothing seriously wrong with me and no apparent lasting issues. My ankle had become background noise/pain compared to my being so scared from all of this other stuff.

Fast forward to today, July 9th 2017. I’ve had a few other small and short visits from the Big P. And one pretty big one about 3 weeks ago that literally dropped me to my knees. But that’s another post.

So what is the bigger meaning behind this otherwise really long blog? That I am more compassionate, more aware, more sympathetic and definitely more empathetic with my clients and friends than I’ve ever been in my life. I now KNOW what scary, possibly life-changing & debilitating pain feels like. I know more about what it takes to be an advocate for yourself and to have another person advocate for you in the current healthcare system. And I definitely know what it takes to walk – and sometimes crawl – the road of recovery. As slow as it may feel, it’s still forward movement…

 

 

Being of service… ~Coach Kimmie

Not many of you know it but a lot of 2015 was really hard for me. After I completed a Spartan race that I had diligently trained for, I was left in a lurch with regards to a fitness ‘goal’. In late May, I hurt my left hip and was a mess for over a month. Literally – I couldn’t tie my shoes, had trouble getting in and out of the car, and we couldn’t figure it out treatment-wise. I hobbled around, continued to teach (verbally) and fell quickly into a pretty black hole with regard to my personality.  Here’s the blogpost about my hip 😦

Old habits started to creep back in. Childhood coping mechanisms resurfaced. Poor food choices became a quick source of energy  in the form of processed sugar.  I started to “sneak” snacks and eat things that were horribly wrong for my body. Anxiety, depression, weight gain, and general lack of interest in exercise continued even after the worst of the hip problem had resolved itself. I would try to do a workout but everything felt wrong – lethargic, heavy, sad, uncomfortable. I felt horrible trying to show clients/classes workouts and I was huffing like the fat kid I had been in Kentucky. I’m grateful that no one ever mentioned my weight gain or that I was having trouble…. Here’s A really scary blogpost I did ANONYMOUSLY for Fit Bottomed Girls during my rough patch.

So basically from May til late December 2015 I was feeling pretty fraudulent… And I was getting fatter by the month. Unhealthier by the bite. More uncomfortable by the moment. 185 pounds ain’t so cute on my frame when it’s not muscle-y…

Early November 2015 found me sitting at the kitchen table at Dawn’s parents house (likely eating pie – DOH!!) and scrolling through Facebook. One of those “you might like this page” thingies popped up and caught my eye. Their most recent post on the page said they were looking for Squad Leaders. I clicked on it and proceeded to putz around on their page, looked up their website and spent the next 30-ish minutes researching what this intriguing organization stood for as a non-profit. Little did I know this was the pinhole of light that would eventually lead me out of 6 months of a long, dark tunnel…

Catch A Lift Fund’s (CAL’s) Mission:
“Helping wounded veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars start and maintain their healing process both mentally and physically, through physical fitness by providing them gym memberships throughout the United States.”  Their Company Overview:
“CATCH A LIFT was founded in memory of Cpl. Chris Coffland who believed that physical fitness was the basis for a happy and healthy life. CAL pays for yearly gym memberships, across America, for wounded veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Should a veteran prefer to work out at home, CAL will pay for and deliver gym equipment to that veterans home.”

Cpl. Chris Coffland – everyday he’d say “I’m goin’ catch a lift” – his way of saying he was off to the gym.

As I was gobbling up all the information I could from the CAL website and Facebook page (and more pumpkin pie), I began to realize that this whole Squad Leader thing they needed was something I was extremely interested in. Basically, they needed liaisons between the 2500+ Veterans who were participants and the people in charge of running the Fund. Over the course of a year and on a pre-planned regularly set schedule, the Squad Leader would be expected to call each Vet in their Squad. On each call, you’d ask a series of questions set up by the home office and report that information back in via confidential Google doc. You could also just chat about anything else that popped up over the course of the call.       OMG! Talking, the military AND fitness???  I COULD TOTALLY DO THIS!

The more I read and looked at CAL’s history, the more excited I got. I hadn’t felt like this in who knows when! Like I had a purpose, an opportunity, a choice…and the pinhole of light started to expand.

After several (very quickly responded to) emails between myself and Katelyn Rockwell at CAL, I had been scheduled  mid-December for a phone interview with Lynn Coffland,  creator of the Fund and sister of the remarkable man in whose honor it was created.  The morning of my phone interview, I was so nervous! I wanted to sound excited but not too much. I wanted to portray my strengths but not sound cocky. I wanted to explain my history but not be annoying. I wanted to “pass” inspection! Needless to say, I was accepted into the program and scheduled for a follow-up meeting in early January with Ryan Kaufman. He is in charge of all the Squad Leaders. I was assigned my Squad members, sent all the information I’d need to get started and Ryan emailed my Squad members to let them know I’d be contacting them soon to start checking in with each of them. BOOM!

Even before I was assigned my Squad in late January, something in me seriously shifted.        I had a new purpose. I needed to pull my sh*t together and be an example again. I couldn’t be talking to these wounded Veterans about getting their workouts done when I was sitting on my duff eating Cheetos! Ugh…

My Mojo skyrocketed after I heard some of the stories from my Vets. Perspective slapped me upside the head and I fully dumped my ‘sneaky’ snack eating habits – I haven’t been to a 7-11 since Christmas. I jumped smartly and head-on back into workouts; approaching it with a mindset of doing workouts I honestly LIKED. I cold-turkeyed my sugar problem (not without some bad days). I read a couple of self-help books. I meditated. I prayed. I trusted my wife and my closest friends with my deepest & scariest secrets. I started to feel like I had control over my mind, my body and my life again. And that pinhole, that teeny tiny smallest piece of light, has grown into a gorgeous sun that’s eclipsed its way across my previous darkness….

 

 

 

PAIN…What is it good for?!?!

Absolutely EVERYTHING!! That’s what!

Since this past Saturday, I’ve been in what I consider the most amount of TRUE physical pain that I’ve felt in a really long time. Not muscle soreness, not struggle from a workout discomfort — PAIN. And it’s made me really stop and think. It’s “perspective-ized” me a bit. For 20 years, I’ve been working with people who are invariably fighting some type of injury-induced, chronic or otherwise – PAIN. The “thought” of pain has been in my sphere for many years. I’ve been very fortunate to not actually have had any major injuries as an adult so it’s been just that — a thought, a thing I’ve been privy to because of sharing the journeys with my clients. So here’s what I’ve learned about the Big P over the last several days…

As one of my favorites, Dr. Perry from www.StopChasingPain.com says….

This statement above is SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL to me today than at any other time I’ve read it or thought about it. Pain is also an indicator. The events that lead up to the ONE BIG THING can be numerous in nature.  I was just going along la-di-da and BAM!! There it was…PAIN. The movement I did that brought out the pain was one that I do EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. MULTIPLE. TIMES so it shouldn’t have been problematic. However, this one time, it didn’t work like before. I stood up and thought “Hmmm. That feels a little weird. It’ll work itself out, I’m sure.” That was 5 days ago. I’m positive a lot of you have thought that same thing…

I’m sure you’re thinking “But you workout and you use your www.YogaTuneUp.com therapy balls and you have body awareness. HOW could you still get hurt from a movement your body is used to?”

I asked myself the same thing and it led me to think about the days prior to the injury… Wednesday and Thursday I was basically couch and bed-ridden fighting off some type of cold/flu/crud. I slept somewhere in the realm of 35 hours over 2 days.  So, that means I was curled up in a variety of random positions and not really moving around very much at all. I was also likely dehydrated.  Friday I came back to work and kept my energetic output very light and rested as I could. Saturday, I felt about 80% back to normal and was simply setting up for class when IT HAPPENED. Those 3 days prior to the injury were so important. My usual day is one with LOTS of movement: walking, squatting, pulling, pushing, etc so having a few days with MUCH LESS activity actually set me up for a problem…

Walking, sitting, standing, driving, toilet-ing, going upstairs, ANY movement — perpetuated the pain. Lifting my leg in any direction, bending forward at my waist – NOTHING was comfortable. I felt so defeated. I felt so scared. I felt so vulnerable. I felt so “not Kim”.  So, driving back to work midday Monday, I cried. Out of fear, out of pain, out of a deep down insecurity. All these crazy thoughts: “What if it’s something really wrong? What if I can’t work? What if it’s more than a muscle thing?” My mind went to the darkest spaces because I was scared…

Then I realized I was also crying for my clients. Those who LIVE DAILY with some type of constant, nagging, exhausting discomfort in their bodies.  And that part of the cry? Well, that made me stop and think “Kim, your discomfort is mild compared to some of the PAINS you’ve seen in your clients. You have Dawn and all the tools necessary to make yourself well. This is a blip on the screen. You will be fine.”

So despite not feeling less physical pain after my little pity party, my MIND felt exponentially better. My perspective shifted. My approach to the problem rearranged itself in that moment. I was fortunate enough to have the ever-smart and super-talented Dawn work on me (her www.NeuroKineticTherapy.com skills are amazing!!). Then, thanks to my friend Jenn, I slept really well 2 nights in a row. I have created, in my mind, a healthy hip.

And today, I feel about 50% better than yesterday.

So that means I’m on my way to 100%…with a different perspective on my body and my movements!

My take on “Tiger Blood” + Exercising while Whole30-ing…

So there’s this thing that the Whole30 (www.Whole30.com) book, followers, creators, etc talk about.   The elusive…TIGER BLOOD. Here’s Whole30’s “definition” of it.  http://whole30.com/2014/04/tiger-blood/

I wanted to roll this idea into my thoughts on exercising while going through a Whole30 as well. And here’s a little thread from the Whole30 for Athletes section forum. Does Exercise + Whole30 = MORE weight loss? http://forum.whole9life.com/topic/20364-whole-30-and-exercise/

As you well know, I’m going to stick my 2-cents’ worth in here. This is my 3rd Whole30 and I’ve exercised my way through all of them semi-regularly. However, this is the FIRST Whole30 that I’ve been more focused on my weight training than on my cardio.  (this in itself is a whole other blogpost!!) And a couple of Sundays ago, I posted a video saying how it’s important to MOVE more regularly during these 30 days to help your body rid itself of pent up energy, frustration, etc, especially if you’ve not been moving at all or very little.  BUT, just like with our food choices, we have to be SMART in our exercise/movement/fitness choices.

If you haven’t been exercising for the last 6 months before starting Whole30, you should NOT try to exercise 5-6 days per week. Right?  You should start small; walking 15-30 minutes 3, 4,5 times a week for enjoyment or some type of low intensity exercise that makes you HAPPY.  If you LOVE yoga, do yoga. If you LOVE spinning, spin but don’t completely wear yourself out. If you LOVE to lift heavy weights 🙂 lift but be thoughtful. If you LOVE to whatever, DO it but do it because it makes you feel AWESOME!

If you have been exercising regularly for the last 6 months or so, then you can expect the first week or so to be a little less vigorous or lengthy and then in weeks 2.5-3 you could possibly see yourself feeling like you’re getting back into a groove. Weeks 3-4 may feel like someone’s lit a fire under you and your body says “Woohoo! Let’s do this!!”

Or…maybe not.  That’s the thing, y’all. WE. ARE. ALL. SO. DIFFERENT.                          Be patient with yourself. Be nice to yourself while you’re acclimating to eating/cooking/prepping/shopping/thinking differently.

Please, don’t quit. Don’t stop this forward momentum. You deserve this 30 days. No one else can give it to you but YOU.

So, as we embark on the next couple of weeks, PLEASE reach out when you need help. Ask questions (there are NO stupid questions!) Share more. Give yourself a pat on the back more often.  And know that this really hard thing you’re doing…it’s pretty amazing!! See you soon…

~Coach Kimmie

Each day…

Each day I look forward to a few things:

My coffee, my dogs, saying good morning to Dawn and Dr. Kathy Dooley’s Daily blogpost. The first 3 things should be apparent as to why I look forward to them. But some of you may not know Kathy. I’ve never met her personally but I’m going to soon. Her Immaculate Dissection course will be coming to Kinesis this summer and we’re over the moon excited to share in it! https://www.facebook.com/ImmaculateDissection?ref=br_tf

Each day, Kathy’s Daily blogs inspire, push, ignite and remind me of the WHYs Kinesis was brought to life. Her mission – http://www.drdooleynoted.com/the-dooley-mission/ – really brought me back to the REASON for opening our own business.(http://www.KinesisLiving.com)

Each day, Dawn and I hope to give our clients power over their pain, educate them into their own physical evolutions, allow them to safely advance their movement patterns and honestly LIVE in the most optimal way possible.

Each day, all of you remind Dawn and me why EACH DAY is so very important.

Coach Kimmie

The Teacher Becomes the Student… by Coach Kimmie

Most weeks, I’m busy prepping/planning/thinking/conniving ways to give my clients and class participants the BEST workouts possible.

My private sessions, although not always written out, have a very specific direction in which they go for each person.

My FUNctional FITness groups are different each class & host a mixture of all things “life-based”, cardiovascular HIITs and some honest-to-goodness FUN! (what’s functional? (http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/working-out-for-real-life-functions)

My TRX Core and Sweat classes truly live up to their names!! (what’s TRX? https://www.trxtraining.com/suspension-training).

And my Pilates groups are peppered with functional movements, grunts, groans, sweat, fitness “cues” and sometimes a whole lotta laughter! (what type of Pilates do we offer at Kinesis? www.StottPilates.com)

So you can imagine that sometimes, my personal workouts take a backseat and get less than optimum planning, etc.  As a trainer for 19 years (whuuuttt???!!! that’s HALF OF MY LIFE!), I’ve come to not only expect this, but to be ok with it and understand it.  And then, there’s THIS! While at PrimalCon, I learned I tied for 3rd place BEST PERSONAL TRAINER in the Argonaut’s Best of the Westside 2014 issue! Woohoo baby! (what’s the Argonaut? http://argonautnews.com/health-fitness-2/) Gratuitous horn-toot 🙂

But this past week, I got 4 workouts in and 3 of them were actually given to me by SOMEONE ELSE! I didn’t have to “come up with” the plan, think about the reps or figure out the premise.  (can you hear those angels singing?!)

Wednesday evening, I got a fabulous (and OMG hard!) Pilates group workout with Ginger Daniels at Kinesis. I’m ALWAYS reminded how hard Pilates is when you do it RIGHT. Not when you do it fast or crazy or “bootcamp-y” but when it’s done from a place DEEP down in yo’ belly… My core was awake for a few days 🙂

Saturday after I taught at Kinesis, DrDawn created a fantastic “garage gym” workout for the two of us at our house.  Sweating it out with deadlifts, push-ups, pull-ups and single leg weighted movements made me so happy! And, it was good relationship time since we don’t get to workout at the same time very often at all.

And today, I’m excited to take a Yoga Tune Up® workshop.  It doesn’t matter to me what the plan is – it’s just that I get to experience it! (what’s Yoga Tune Up®? www.YogaTuneUp.com)

It’s been very beneficial to me to have someone else looking at my form, tweaking my movements and TEACHING me this week. Sometimes you’ve gotta sit on the other side of the room to see what you’ve been “missing”…

And remember, just keep it movin’… ~Coach Kimmie

Sharing the Ball-Love…at PrimalCon 2014!

Hello Kinesis Community!

DrDawnDPT and I just returned from an unbelievably amazing FIRST experience at PrimalCon – Oxnard 2014!  We are so excited to have our first large scale “presenting” opportunity under our belts. And what a phenomenal group we had!

We really wanted to share some photos from the weekend, some links to the wonderful people we met and give you insight into what we were doing away from Kinesis 🙂

http://www.marksdailyapple.com Mark Sisson is the man behind The Primal Blueprint book and Mark’s Daily Apple. Jaynee Higgott (love you!) is the woman who is responsible for our PConOx experience…

http://themerrymakersisters.com These two…what can I say?? Amazing recipes, fun pics and an outstanding attitude towards life and health.

http://www.thehealthycookingcoach.com Chef Rachel’s Keynote speech was more than amazing. It was truly life-changing… And Dr Dawn is implementing Chef Rachel’s suggestions for achieving and maintaining nutritional ketosis.

http://www.thefitnessexplorer.com Darryl is Coach Kimmie’s movement hero. She was so excited to meet, talk and play with this guy!

http://dailyvitamoves.com Angelo dela Cruz blends martial arts, fitness, and bodywork skills into his signature movement paradigm – VitaMoves. Dr Dawn is incorporating some of his flow motions into her already popular Yoga Tune Up® classes and they’re a real hit!

http://notsofastfoodtruck.com Bob Montgomery’s company. Check it out!

http://www.urbanprimalist.com Timothy, the Sledgehammer Guy 🙂

https://www.yogatuneup.com We couldn’t have had such a great event without Jill Miller and her famous Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls! We were so happy to represent and educate people on the amazing effects these little grippy rubber bundles of love can have!

And so many more! Find them in this recap of the event! http://www.marksdailyapple.com/we-are-family-primalcon-oxnard-2014/#axzz3F0n7maW7

 

Saturday’s Survivor-style Team Challenge!! I was on the end of the board and was REALLY glad I could squat low and reach long!!

Sledgehammer workout!! Y’all may be seeing some of this soon 🙂

Brian Tabor showing off his Slackline skills! (@strongmadesimple)

Angelo (Ninja Warrior participant!!) taking the group through his signature series of movements… Vitamoves.

Saturday night Ocean Plunge and Hot Tub sprint! What a gorgeous night…

Our name tags… Love it!!

 

 

As you can see, they fed us VERY well. Paleo/Primal all the way! Never having to ask “what’s in it?” or “how’s it cooked?”

Bob Montgomery of NotSoFast Food Truck in San Diego took very good care of the grill! The PCon crew fed approximately 150 of us twice a day!! Thank you!

Holy wow! Darryl Edwards, the Fitness Explorer out of the UK, easily holding both of us for this outstanding shot! We had such a great time “playing primally” with this guy….

Happy “campers”. It was beautiful weather and we were so excited to be part of this event!

Friday morning, introducing ourselves and our BALLS! We represented for Kinesis and Yoga Tune Up® by educating attendees on self myofascial release.

Darryl’s “world premier” of his new logo for PRIMAL PLAY!

One of the amazing crew, Chris, just playing with his balls… 🙂 He DID actually use them for some great trapezius release!

Brian using the Alpha Ball to release some side seam body parts. Namely the LATS!

Coach Kimmie was SO excited to meet the MerryMaker Sisters Carla and Emma from Australia! They attended a few of our sessions and went home with balls of their own 🙂

Dr D leading a Sunday morning session…

GROK ON, baby! I love my new PrimalCon and Grok shirts!

Chef Rachel had a truly self-healing experience to share. Battling cancer for the last several years, her approach to a more ketogenic-based diet has definitely been a game changer! So glad to meet her!

Mats, blocks and balls!

Coach Kimmie leading a session on Saturday. Rolling out the feet = happier PrimalCon attendees!

Session attendees relaxing a bit between ball rolling sets. Gorgeous skies!!

Gettin’ Trappy with it!! Working out the upper back and shoulder area…

This young man was such a treat to have in sessions. Just a teen, he wanted to attend this year with his parents. High energy, funny ball jokes and here – resting from the side seam/lat work!

Vanessa and her hubby DT brought their baby to PCon this year. He was such a sweetie! Gotta start ’em young! Thanks for posing, Vanessa!

Darryl prepping a group for Primal Play!

Darryl showing off his capabilities 🙂

Carrie Sisson (Mark’s wife) and Karen led meditation groups each morning. Plus, they were presenting and sharing information on “What’s Blocking Your Success?” They were very popular and great teammates for the Survivor Challenge on Saturday morning!!

That’s me in the center 🙂 This is after Primal Playout (instead of WORKout) with Darryl. FUN FUN FUN!

Carla and Emma “holding” Darryl! Looks a little uneven in the workload to me!!

Cyndie and her hubby Justin attended for the first time this year. Cyndie will be graduating from IIN soon and helping people along their nutrition journeys. Thanks for the pose!!

Timothy (UrbanPrimalist on Instagram) and his Sledgehammer group! Crazy, yelling, strength and primal-based movements. Everyone looked like they were having a fabulous time!!

Morning walk from the hotel to the park.