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Parkinson’s: An Athlete’s Journey is for athletes navigating Parkinson’s, the coaches and clinicians who train them, and anyone who wants real-world strategies for performance and longevity. Hosted by Eric Von Frohlich and Todd Vogt, the show focuses on tactical takeaways: how to train, recover, manage symptoms, and stay consistent when the rules keep changing. Expect honest conversations, tested routines, and guest experts who go deeper on what works.
[00:00:00]
So movement is medicine is something I've been hearing a lot lately Movement is medicine And it's something that I've advocated for a bunch of years, but you've gone down the path of getting a doctorate and studying it, and so let's jump into 36 years of teaching this and then verifying it through your doctorate program.
How did that all start and why Parkinson's and what brought you to this point? Absolutely. So I've been in this industry, like you said, 36 years, [00:01:00] and I started out as a garage personal trainer. I had a little gym in my garage, and friends and neighbors would come over and train with me, and, you know, then that expanded into a little broader clientele.
And to be honest with you, it just became a situation where I needed to separate home and work. I needed to have that, that boundary and that balance. And then I started working for a big box gym. I'm sure you remember Bally Total Fitness back in the day. Absolutely. And I worked for them for, uh, geez, 15 years, and I oversaw...
So within my rookie year, I became the, the director, and then I became the area director, and, I was one of the first people to bring in Silver Sneakers to, uh, the Arizona market- Wow ... in, uh, with Bally Total Fitness. So I had exposure and introduction to adult populations at that time. And then as far as exploring special populations, and movement [00:02:00] disorders definitely fall into special populations, I have a daughter who is special needs, a- and she'll be 31 actually on Monday.
H- and- Happy birthday I know, right? She's a twin. Yeah. So my- And it goes, it goes quick, right? Right? H- and so then I started exploring more and learning more about special populations, and just through the years, you know, kinda in and out of box gyms and then small gyms. Then, I was actually a med tech professor for a university.
So medicals assistance, CNAs, they were my students, and just learning more about the, the clinical side of things. And I know I'm, like, taking 36 years at, at light speed here. But then, uh, the agency that I work for now, 'cause I'd had clients throughout the years, I was always the coach, the trainer and instructor that when other coaches were either afraid or they just, they're like, "This is out of my wheelhouse, and I don't even wanna [00:03:00] try," then it's like, "Lori'll do it.
Send them to Lori." And so I was like, "Sure. Bring them on." And I, so I learned a lot through grassroots, and I learned a lot organically, and that partnered very well with my studies, You know, several, years ago, I became ACE certified as a group fitness instructor and- Mm-hmm ... then got some special certifications through them, and then other organizations.
And then that led me down the, academic path. I achieved my associate's degree in exercise science, and there was a pivotal class that I took in that program, which was sport psychology. And in sport psychology, you really start to get a deeper introduction to special populations. From there, my bachelor's degree was in complementary and alternative health, and just looking at the body holistically and seeing things that interrupt normal pathways.
Mm-hmm. And again, you're starting to see some common threads like, oh, movement disorders. Right. [00:04:00] Oh, different neurological challenges, and there's all this that was kind of finding its way to me, so it was very serendipitous. then continued my path of education. Both my master's and doctorate are in health and wellness psychology.
And, and again, it was just very serendipitous how I ended up specifically in the Parkinson's realm. the agency that I work for now, it's a nonprofit agency, and we're most known in the Phoenix area for what we call life enrichment, which is basically adult daycare. And the agency decided to open up an adaptive fitness.
They had no idea what that meant. They just knew they- Mm-hmm ... needed it. Right. So the day that I was hired, they said, "Here's your space. Here's your budget. Here's our concept. Go with God. Peace be with you." Ha- and- Wow. That's a lot of trust. It's a lot of trust. So obviously, I did well in the interview, you know?
Exactly. Yeah. Well, I'm just so impressed that you were humble enough after 36 years of doing [00:05:00] what you were doing to go back and say, "I need to further my education." Yeah, So from the time I started my associate's through the doctorate program, so those four degrees took 10 years.
Amazing. And what have you taken out of that? You're never too old to learn. So I very much apply the eight dimensions of wellness, and our intellectual wellness is predicated on our willingness to continue to learn. Okay, to throw you on the spot, what are the eight pr- eight, uh- Eight dimensions of wellness?
characteristics? Yes. Okay. So financial, social, emotional, spiritual, occupational, intellectual, environmental, and physical. Beautiful. It pretty much covers everything.
It covers everything, and the financial wellness, for example, it... I mean, hey, who wouldn't want to be a millionaire, right? But it's not about that. It's are you financially responsible? Are you, you know, living within your means? And, 'cause all of that has to do with our stress level. Right. Well, stress level very much [00:06:00] impacts physical health, and then when you have, when you compound that with, like, a movement disorder, so everything has to work synergistically.
Right. It makes a lot of sense because the stress could be coming from lack of sleep, which could be coming from relationships or from finances or whatever the extenuating circumstance is. But if you don't get to the source of the stress, then you're kind of fighting, you know, a ghost, and there's no way to, like, really get any improvement.
Absolutely. And I've really seen over my career where the psychological aspect of what I do, so r- I'm really happy with my choice of going into the health and wellness psychology because that definitely, and understanding those eight dimensions of wellness, because it is very clear to see when I do a new enrollment, when I have somebody come into the adaptive gym here and I, I do that new [00:07:00] enrollment, I just had a gentleman earlier this week who was just diagnosed last month with Parkinson's. Wow. And he, i- i- during that intake, he, he wept three times. I mean, he was just... 'Cause he's scared. A- and I told him the same thing I tell everybody, "Your diagnosis does not define you. It just tells me which tool kit we need."
Right. It's such a great way to look at it because it, is different for everyone, and your mindset determines the experience you end up having instead of the experience you're having determines your mindset. Right. And so it, it's incredibly important that those newly diagnosed understand how much impact they can have on this diagnosis.
Absolutely. So you didn't stumble, you found your way into the adaptive because of your daughter and because of your, client base. What is it that you tell the newly diagnosed people? What kind of steps do you take in [00:08:00] individualizing the programming for them instead of just throwing them in the mix?
Absolutely. So when I do a full intake assessment, I wanna know a little bit about their medical history, okay? So, I wanna know, a- and especially if somebody is, let's say, 60, 70 years old, they've never exercised before, now we're gonna have them exercise. Well, that outside of a movement disorder, that's gonna have its own set of risks, right?
Right. So cardiopulmonary risks. So the first thing I wanna know is what ki- what's your general health, whether that's good general health or poor general health, what is your general health walking in the door? I go through a very extensive, background on their personal health history. Then the next thing that I do is I take a baseline of vitals.
So I wanna know, you know, how are they perfusing oxygen? What's their blood pressure like? What are some of these other just baseline numbers so as they either progress or regress or stagnate, I have a now, a, a [00:09:00] plot point on a chart, if you will. After that, I take them out into the gym, and I'm going to do proprioceptive tests, which I'll circle back to in a second, and then, uh, I do primary joint range of motion tests, and then I do a posture test.
The posture test is the absolute most telling test The proprioceptive test. Proprioception is your spatial awareness. Mm-hmm. And that can become very diminished with a movement disorder. So let me give you a great example. So right now, without looking, how far away is the wall to your right? Without look- To the right
without looking Uh, 18 feet. How about the wall to your left? Three feet. How about the wall behind you? Four feet. How about the computer in front of you? Uh, 16 inches. How did you know all of that information without looking? Because your brain does a 360 scan. So when you [00:10:00] walk into a room, whether it's your first time or your umpteenth time- Mm-hmm
when you walk into a room, your body does a 360 scan, and it, assesses how much space is needed for you to move about. Otherwise, we'd all be the human Roomba just- Right ... moving in, running in and redirecting things, right? So I've noticed that with Parkinson's, as individuals progress in their disease, those proprioceptive abilities diminish to the point that they completely decline.
And so I'll do what's called, a stork stand, or a Romberg or a sharpened Romberg. So I'll have somebody stand in tandem, and sometimes their, their feet are all different directions, so that tells me that they're not processing the mind and the movement together. or I'll have them do the old touch the nose test.
Mm-hmm. and individuals who are severely progressing in their disorder, now not all people with Parkinson's have tremors, okay? So I'm gonna frame it [00:11:00] by saying that, but you'll see a lot of people, they'll get to kind of that halfway mark, and then the tremors really become pronounced. So that tells me how their brain is a- again assimilating movement, okay?
So that's the proprioceptive part of the test. The pos- So let me add, that's why we shuffle at night when it's dark? That's a lot of times yes, and, there's actually dementia studies that have now been published that the more cluttered your space is, your, you know, whether it's your home space or your office space, your living space, the more cluttered that is, It's not favorable. Beneficial. It's not beneficial- Right ... because then your brain has to navigate those extra things. So when you get up in the night to use the restroom, let's face it, you're half asleep, right? And you don't necessarily think about that navigational path. You just kind of do it because you know where everything is.
Well, as- Hopefully ... as the disease progresses, then that's when people start running into things and tripping and falling and, things like that. [00:12:00] Oh, it's really interesting that there, there's a explanation for the shuffling and the uncertain movement patterns sometimes that show up. Shuffling, though, I notice a lot more related to shuffling respective to the posture, analysis. So to kinda give you an idea about that, I use this little instrument right here called a goniometer. Mm-hmm. And I'm going to measure, they're called bony landmarks. So the, in medicine, we always look at the body head to toe, middle to out, except movement.
Movement you evaluate from the ground up because that's where inertia or locomotion begins. Even if you walk on your hands, that's still coming from the ground up. So that's rule number one. Rule number two, there's three primary ways to divide the body in half: right from left, front from back, and top from bottom.
There's a place where those three lines intersect, which [00:13:00] is right behind your belly button in front of your tailbone between your two hips. From there, the next rule that we apply is bones follow muscle. So if the bones are out of alignment, that's going to affect movement. So then, regardless if you have a movement disorder or not, if we look at the structural composition of somebody and how that's positioned, then we can start to, advocate exercise prescription, 'cause a lot of people that I see, their heads are way out here.
So I take a, measurement from the pokey part of your shoulder to the earlobe. I could care less how tall that is. Both humans and giraffes have seven vertebrae in the neck. I don't care how tall your neck is. Right. I care how forward that is, and what's really common with Parkinson's, and actually aging adults, is we get really tight in the chest muscles, so the anterior muscles.
Yeah. We get very loose in the posterior muscles. That is g- that [00:14:00] causes a forward bend of the body. So when I see that forward bend of the body, that's gonna take their center of gravity from here to out here. Then the next thing that happens, and this is where the shuffling comes in, our brains know that to stand on a wider base is safer than to stand on a closed base, so then our feet widen, and then we start to shuffle.
Makes complete sense. Thank you for breaking that down. Of course. It's really kind of fascinating. So you, you focus on postural alignment, and then you give exercises to try to correct that, I would imagine- Correct ... or work with it. Correct And how do you approach the onboarding of people into group fitness classes?
Do you just educate them on their weaknesses and what they need to focus on, or is this scalability or adaptability that you factor into the programming to begin with? Fabulous question. So the agency that I work for, that my department, we have over 35 classes a week to [00:15:00] choose from. But not every class is for every body.
So there's a couple rules that I apply. First of all, the best exercise on the planet I don't care what your diagnosis is, there's one exercise that works for everybody, and the answer is the one you'll do. Right. So we have to kinda start there. So from there, the classes that we offer here, the different time of the day and the day of the week So for example, our 8:00 AM classes, the participants that take that class you would never know, for example, that half of them have Parkinson's. You would never in a million years know. They are either very well-managed or just early enough in their, progress where you would not by the naked eye see that.
Mm-hmm. that being said, if I have somebody that is very, you know, they're further in their journey, then I'm not going to, in good ethics, recommend that they take that 8:00 class 'cause I'd be setting them up for failure. Right. So the language that I use with folks, because I, [00:16:00] I don't ever want to be negative or damning or say, "Well, you, you can't take this class."
What I'm going to tell them is that, "I understand your goals," because they shared their goals with me during that initial intake questionnaire. From there, if you told me, for example, Eric, that you wanted to run a marathon, we're not gonna go run 26 miles your first day. Right. We're going to start with a short run, and we're going to build over time.
So I will tell them that I'm going to position them in a class where it will be a step one toward training and, and achieving their, overarching goals. Sounds like a wonderful program. Thank you. I'm very proud of it. And what's, what's the name of the program and the gym? So the name of the program and, and the gym is BeneFitness Adaptive Gym.
Excellent. And how many years have you been operating? So this, I've been with this agency just shy of five years. Oh, that's great. so what, what else do you guys do? [00:17:00] Do you have general populations as well or- We do ... because there's so much overlap between aging and Parkinson's that it's har- it's easy to conflate the two.
Absolutely. So here at Bene Fitness, we see anybody that is at least 12 years of age or older. And, we can see anybody from the community, it does not matter what their diagnosis is. We have several of our employees that come over and take advantage. And I wanted to integrate the classes very intentionally.
I was extremely intentional in doing that because what happens a lot of times, and this is where I'm gonna draw from my psychology book, what happens a lot of times when individuals are diagnosed with a movement disorder, whether it's Parkinson's or essential tremors or some of the others that, you know, are, are there, a lot of times they feel very siloed and removed from a certain part of society.
And so we want to promote here a very inclusive environment where your diagnosis does not define you. And our youngest member here, they're in their [00:18:00] 20s, and they are a survivor of fetal alcohol syndrome, so nothing to do with a movement disorder. Wow. And they present as if they had a traumatic brain injury.
So if you met this individual off just at random, you would think that they had a TBI. Our oldest member will be 102 in December, and he's just active aging. he does not use any mobility devices. He doesn't use even so much as a cane. so he doesn't have any specific diagnosis. He's just wanting to age well.
about 41% of who I see has Parkinson's. about, 27% of who I see has MS. And then, uh, some of the other diagnosis that we see here are certain cancers. we see a lot, lot of cardiac. we see a lot of dementia, and then just general health. what's interesting about adaptive fitness, I'm gonna ask you a little bit of a trivia question.
Sure. If I had a 12-year-old kid, a, and it doesn't matter boy or girl, so if I had a 12-year-old [00:19:00] child, and I have a 27-year-old expectant mother, an NFL athlete, and a 67-year-old with Parkinson's, what do those four individuals have in common other than they're human beings with a mother? What do they have in common?
That's a great question So categorically, they all fall into adaptive fitness. Right. So the 12-year-old has growth plates. They're still growing and developing, and there's a lot of their bodies that have not fully developed yet, right? The 27-year-old expectant mother, she's growing a human, so there's a lot of different considerations there.
The NFL athlete, a lot of training and agility and nutrition and a lot of different considerations. And of course, the individual with Parkinson's, we have to understand what that means internally. You know, like, what's the, the neuromuscular interruptions, you know, with the dopamine, what's going on with that individual so that we can get the right toolbox.
Right, because everyone's going to adapt even if they're in a group [00:20:00] fitness class. Yes That's great. And so if someone doesn't have access to your particular program and they're looking for something, what should they be looking for? That's a great question. So, we just recently, expanded our programming.
So of those 30-plus classes that we offer every week, 22 of those are available online. So, Great ...
so they have no excuse not to check out your program. There's no excuse. And you have, you mentioned you have a client that's 102. Yeah. So you obviously are working with older patients. He's great. I love that guy. and I think that the biggest benefit that coaches and trainers and, professionals can, glean from is learn their story. Because psychologically, they still wanna know that they have something to contribute or that their life had some meaning.
that, his name's Bill. So Bill, for example, he was a pilot in the Air Force, and when he was discharged from the Air Force, when he was, you know, had, served his time in the military, he got out. He was one of the [00:21:00] first pilots for Pan Am Air. Oh, wow And to listen to those stories. So get to know your people because there is so much enrichment and things that you'll learn about yourself,
And you'll start to learn about how you can better serve people, ' cause you'll start to see common threads. Because at the end of the day, we're all human beings, right? Right. we always set up, I call it campfire style. So when you're setting up a group fitness class, you can either do stadium style, so, like, rows of people- Right
or campfire style. Campfire style with the older population is a lot more meaningful because it's more inclusive, and it makes them feel, again, that they're not siloed away from, whatever. In the adaptive gym here, I also have a, huge dedicated space. It's, uh, up on a mezzanine.
Yeah, there's a stairway and a, and a mezzanine where I created the, a space for caregivers. I've got five massage chairs, two recliners, this beautiful waterfall. the caregivers can get that moment of respite that they so richly need. Yeah. It's [00:22:00] amazing we, how much we underappreciate our caregivers until they break down, and then we realize just how impactful they are in our life.
So it's great. Absolutely. Yeah, and to kinda, circle back to your question about the contribution, you know, because of my daughter, I think that if I had to, isolate one thing, it was my understanding, my deep understanding of what it means to be a caregiver and what that looks like. So I was able to draw from my personal experience.
I mean, my daughter is such a brilliant blessing in my life, and she has taught me so much, and part of that was in order for me to take care of her, I have to take care of me. A- so I created this caregiver space. we also have free s- support groups for caregivers. Yeah, it's the, it's the old analogy of the oxygen mask in the plane.
Yep. It's, uh, it's amazing that you've had that insight as well. It seems as if the, time that you spent as a mother with a daughter with special needs has benefited [00:23:00] a larger community with Parkinson's, and, aging, and Silver Sneakers, and It's, it's such an amazing group that you've tapped into.
It's so rewarding. It is absolutely rewarding, and I think that the thing that has been the most rewarding is the ability to recognize we restore hope because, again, when I get somebody that sits in, in the chair that's, uh, on the other side of my, computer here, when I get people that sit there, and they- they're afraid 'cause they don't know.
It's like, "Now what? I've been given this diagnosis. Now what?" And when you can restore hope, and you can show them that this does not define you, it does not, It's- Yeah, if you can take the what if and make it a positive instead of a negative, it leads to a much better outcome. Absolutely. So do you have any suggestions for starting your day off and how best a Parkinson's patient can jumpstart their day?
Absolutely, because this is definitely a, conversation [00:24:00] where there's no two patients the same. a lot of patients, when their morning, mornings a lot of times are very rough for folks with Parkinson's. It takes a hot minute. So If I had to pick, like, one thing, I would say lay in bed for a minute, orient yourself, take some deep cleansing breaths, do some stretches before you even get out of bed, get your mind right, connect your mind to your body, then begin your day.
That's great. We talk about small wins, stacking small wins. So whether it's making your bed or getting your gratitude in alignment or doing low angle sunlight absorption or, some power plate or some movement based or whatever you have access to, if you can do some, stretching and anything to just move the needle to the success and the k- the momentum forward, it seems to make a huge impact on people.
Absolutely, because as you know, you know, with Parkinson's there's a lot of, most folks [00:25:00] experience to some degree of muscle rigidity. A- and so some of the best ways to kinda move the needle is to connect the mind and the body, get that deep breathing going, get that mind and body connection started, And the locomotion might be slow. That's okay. Movement is medicine. Make yourself move. in my study, I divided exercise into five categories: general exercise, strength and, and resistance training, cardiopulmonary training, mind and body training, and then stretch and range of motion The category that, and this was, I did a, systematic literature review, and the, area of saturation that was the most revealing was general exercise.
Okay, well, what the heck is that? That can be walking the dog. It can be, going for a stroll. It can be going for a swim. It, can vary from day to day. It's basically just means get up and move. You know, consistency is key. the [00:26:00] strength and, and resistance training had more physical benefits, less health benefits.
Cardiopulmonary- Oh, that's interesting ... more health benefits, less physical benefits. and part of the health benefits are going to include, independence, quality of life, things like that. Physical benefits are going to be, like, gait, you know, strength, more what you would think as being, like, physically in motion.
mind and body, kinda-- So mind and body is gonna be, like, yoga, qigong, tai chi, Pilates, things like that, things that are intentionally connecting the mind and the body. And then stretch and range of motion, that is either just, whether you're stretching independently or having a professional do, like, assisted stretch.
All of those categories had some level of benefit, but the concentration of benefit varied. Now, let's say, like, with Rock Steady Boxing, I would categorically place that into cardiopulmonary exercise. Mm-hmm. Uh, however, it's also great for mind and body because [00:27:00] when the, coach is doing a sequence, I don't know, jab, jab, cross, hook, and the coach calls that one, one, two, four.
"All right, everybody, high to low, one, one, two, four," well, the participant has to connect cognitively what is a one and then what is- Right ... the sequential order of that. So we know, conclusively that the neurosensory stimulus from the exercise combined with the cognitive processing is going to not only ease the day-to-day symptoms, but it also slows the progression.
numerous studies on that, and that study also combines with, different neurological studies and dementia studies. So when you combine physical exercise with mental exercise, you're going to decrease your risk of cognitive challenges, which are a lot of times, as you know, f- they correlate with, movement disorders.
Right. Do, do you have an explanation for-- 'Cause I kinda feel like I have you in front of me now, I can [00:28:00] ask all these questions that- Yep ... do you have an explanation for why paddle sports add to longevity so much? so again, categorically, depending on how long somebody is playing and how assertively that they're playing, that could either fall under the category of cardiopulmonary or general exercise, right?
But what is extremely important about those types of exercises is you're connecting the mind and movement, right? And it's also spatial awareness. That proprioception that we talked about earlier, it's going to connect the dots with proprioception. Excellent. I have two sports that I participate in that seem to be opposite ends of the spectrum, but th- are solving the same problem.
One is pickleball- Okay ... and the other one is jujitsu. Perfect. And it seems like it's bracketed my... every challenge I have in between gets covered with those two, and it's just a matter of how frequently I can do them and how much exposure I can get to them on any given week. Absolutely, and both of those are going to teach you mind and body [00:29:00] connection, and they're also gonna teach you spatial awareness, which is extremely important for a movement disorder.
the other thing that my study revealed, and this was interesting to me 'cause I'd never known this, until I did my study. So there's a component of exercise, it's going to fall under the category of cardiopulmonary, so categorically it's gonna fall there, but it's called forced exercise. Now, forced exercise is not you have to exercise.
That's not what that means. Okay? Forced exercise is any modality that requires the right and left side of the body to work symmetrically, like a recumbent bike or even a stationary bike, a Strider, an elliptical machine. So those machines are developed so that the body works symmetrically, right? And what is extremely common, I've seen this both, in studies and then just observationally, it is more common than not that folks with movement disorders have single side deficit or single side prominence, [00:30:00] and the forced exercise helps to level that out.
So let's say if I'm on a NuStep or I- I'm, I'm on an elliptical. My limbs have to work synergistically at the same speed, at the same range of motion, and that tells the brain, "Oh, I have to operate equally." And it will help to streamline s- it does seem to help with people that have gait disturbance or gait dysfunction, the shuffling.
it will help with, all of those things. That's great. And i- is there truth to marching or, dancing that falls into those similar categories? Absolutely, because marching, so that's gonna be the mind and body, connection, right? Because whether it's a coordinated dance, you know, if you're doing interpretive dance, if you're doing marching, 'cause marching is a very specific, I have to connect my mind to my body to march in rhythm, to march with intent.
and the same thing [00:31:00] with dancing. So because we can kind of picture if I said ballroom dancing versus the Jitterbug versus hip hop, immediately our brains can visualize what those dance styles look like. Yeah. Well, I have to connect my mind and my body. Now, depending on how coordinate is, coordinated we may or may not be.
Right. So that's a whole different thing. I couldn't dance before I had Parkinson's, so it's not likely I'm gonna be dancing after I have Parkinson's. but it does connect the mind and the body to, I have to tell my body to operate within a certain space and a certain rhythm. That's fascinating. So what was the biggest takeaway from your study for three years?
'Cause you went in, I'm sure, feeling fairly well educated. Absolutely. So the biggest takeaway was movement is medicine, and it doesn't matter what you do, just do something. So the best exercise is the one that you'll do. The other thing is consistency is key. So there's so often in my, profession that people want the genie in the bottle.
I don't [00:32:00] care how old you are, I don't care what your goals are, whether it's the mom that wants to lose the baby weight or somebody that has a movement disorder, that's merely interesting. So often people want the genie in the bottle. It doesn't exist. people will ask me all the time, " how long do I have to do this?"
One easy answer: forever. Or until you die. Till you die. And the more you exercise consistently, So the, the '80s mantra, "No pain, no gain," that's bull- Right ... let that go. Train, don't strain. Love it. I think it sounds, like, a lot, lot less intimidating to get involved than- Yeah, just do something. You know, the best exercise is the one that you'll do, right?
So if all you're doing is something- Yeah, and there's, there's something for everyone ... there's something for everybody. Just like Nike said, "Just do it." Exactly. Exactly. So what's the best advice you have for someone newly diagnosed? Don't be afraid.
Start, so just, like, again, whether you are [00:33:00] coming to me saying, "I want to run a marathon or do a century ride on a bike," start small, build big. Right. So it's important to do goal setting, I would imagine. it is. I mean, it is, and the goals really have to be realistic. kinda what you said earlier, set small wins.
So when... And, again, it doesn't matter if somebody has a movement disorder or not, you want to set somebody up for success, and the best way to do that is to start out with small, achievable wins, because then we get momentum. It's like, "Oh, I can do this. Oh, okay, I get it." Right. Because there's a degree of learned helplessness with Parkinson's that I've noticed quite a bit.
It's as soon as you find out what the symptoms are, you seem to manifest them rather quickly. Absolutely. Yeah. And is that a psychological component, or is that, is there something else going on that kinda seems to release the flood of varied symptoms hitting [00:34:00] you all at the same time? I think it's a kinda d- all of the above.
I think that there is, some relevance to how somebody grew up. You know, I grew up on a cattle ranch, and I watched my grandfather. I mean, his hands were so crippled with arthritis. He didn't care, 'cause he was, he used to tell us all the time, "Hey, cows don't care." Right. So he would get up, and he would get out there, and, you know, he would do what he had to do.
And then I also meet folks that stub their toe and think that they're gonna lose their foot, you know? So it's, a lot of it is just what was the mindset that you had growing up and going into it, Some, I, I think the biggest thing is the fear of the unknown. whenever somebody is given a, diagnosis that is in fact you know, there's no cure, that for a lot of people it just, it cascades this fear factor that we c- we know so much now that it's not just a gloom and doom diagnosis.
Right. And that's unfortunate that message doesn't get out there, so I'm [00:35:00] happy that you're saying that because it, it does seem to have a lot to do with your mindset, as you were saying, and with your environment that you grew up in. And there's, it seems to be a commonality amongst, people with Parkinson's that they're very resilient but very caring people.
And so I'm curious if, have you noticed any charac- psychological characteristics that seem to, define Parkinson patients, or is it just all over the place? It's all over the map. I think that it's more, again, how somebody grew up, and, culture can play a role in that too, 'cause different cultures, accept diagnosises differently.
Well, that's interesting ... you know, in some cultures they're very private, and if something's wrong they- they're very private about it, and so a lot of times they'll delay treatment and they'll delay options. so that can definitely be a factor when we can educate people. And part of that is just expanding on health literacy, that exercise truly is for everybody, and [00:36:00] if getting out working on your farm equipment is what you need to do, well, that's still exercise, it's still movement.
Right. Do you find that the communal aspects of group exercise are more beneficial than one-on-one, or do you feel that there's an ideal way to approach that? You know, everybody's different, and it just kind of depends on, again, and some of that's cultural and some of that is too, so we just enrolled a guy last week that the group classes, it's too much.
It was way over-stimulating for him, so he does the one-on-one. So I really think that that is an individual thing. That said, though, the group fitness classes are extremely popular because they still need our social health, right? That, that, dimension of wellness is it still promotes social health and that connectivity.
Some people are just private individual people, and they, the least attention, the better for them. So I think it's whatever works best for you. Right. I, I found for the most part isolation doesn't work so well. No. Lone [00:37:00] wolfing it is not, not necessarily a stoic characteristic that I want to embrace.
I need my community to support me. Right. And a com- and define community. A community can be little or it can be big. So, even just getting out of the house and coming to the gym and working one-on-one with a trainer is still a social act. It's still a social involvement, 'cause you had to get out of your house to, to do it.
Right. So we have these five characteristics of, fitness, and how do you manage to hit the dexterity, the balance, the coordination, the endurance, the strength all in one program? ' Cause it seems like it's, it's moving constantly. The symptoms are constantly changing- Yeah ... but the programming probably is not.
Right. So, great question. So what I'll, what I'll recommend to people is take a strength and stabilize class on Monday, take a boxing class on Tuesday, take yoga on Wednesday. Mix and match. [00:38:00] It's great that you guys have so many classes. That was very intentional. So when I designed this program, just like I've designed many other programs in my career, A, I wanna make sure that there's a little something for everybody, 'cause you might love boxing, you might not love boxing. Right. I wanna make sure that there is something for everybody, but the other part of that is making sure that I'm offering things that do address those different categories of fitness.
And can you do too much fitness? Yes And I don't care who you are. So yes, it's, in fact, there's actually, it's called OTS, overtraining syndrome, and which can be dangerous. in very, very severe cases, individuals can develop a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which can cause kidney failure, kidney death, or even physical death.
So we wanna make sure that if somebody is coming here even every single day, that A, they're not [00:39:00] overdoing it, so the coaches have a keen eye to make sure that they're helping to pump the brakes when they need to be pumped. And we also promote healthy lifestyles and nutrition. You can't leave here and go drink a six-pack of beer and eat a big pizza and expect to feel good.
so we also promote healthy lifestyles, you know, holistically, you know, like all the way around. Uh, and speaking that you can, to the point that you can now to exercise, your diet, is there one diet that you're kinda falling behind as an organization, or is it individualized as well? It's very individualized, although I will say what I have seen has worked the best is, you know, for the Parkinson's population, I'm a huge fan of the Mediterranean diet because that's an anti-inflammatory diet.
That said, incorporate-- So if you're going to, uh, with the Mediterranean diet, lean a little heavy on those healthy fats. Mm-hmm ... I'm not a fan of the-- I know a lot of folks are a [00:40:00] fan of the keto diet for Parkinson's and for movement disorders. The thing I don't like about the keto diet is it's the discipline that it takes to follow it correctly, the success rate on that is, is very, very small.
The keto diet was actually developed to combat epilepsy. It was never com- Mm-hmm ... never meant to be like a weight loss thing or anything like that. But with Parkinson's, if you can incorporate those nice healthy fats, but to eat a diet that is very rich in fiber, nutrients like that, because one of the things that I do see internally is folks with movement disorders a lotta times have motility problems, and, they have slow motility and, you know, chronic constipation.
So with a diet that, like the Mediterranean diet, that is very rich in, fiber, very rich in natural water. So like if you took all- Yeah ... the water out of an apple, you'd have apple chips, right? So foods that are very naturally high in water and naturally high in fiber as well as high in nutrients will [00:41:00] deescalate some of the inflammation Excellent.
So I am a big fan of, have had a lot of success with the keto diet, so I'm glad you mentioned that. But it's, again, it's challenging to eat nothing but sardines for 30 days. Right. E- exactly. And for a lot of folks, it, that's just not realistic. Right ... God bless the people that can do it, but for a lot of the folks, uh, 'cause again, what's the best diet?
The one, the answer's the one you'll follow. Right. Any benefits from, from your community on the fasting, or is that something that's individualized as well? I think that's highly individualized. I see some people do very well with that, and I see some people that do very, very poorly with that. anybody that I have that has a, comorbidity of, say, diabetes, I do not want them fasting.
They need that constant energy. It's a little easier on the pancreas. Yeah, that's, uh, that's a good point. Now, since we're tackling [00:42:00] issues of challenge, what about sleep? Do you have any words of wisdom on sleep? I do. so there's kinda like a three, two, one rule, right? So avoid your electronics, avoid overstimulation before you go to bed, avoid eating three hours before you go to bed.
Also, your room should be your sanctuary. If you're laying in bed watching TV until you fall asleep, that is not conducive for good sleep. Your brain needs to completely deescalate and prepare for sleep. your room should smell nice. It should look nice. Your room should be not overly cluttered. So we wanna create an environment that is, again, conducive for sleep.
some folks sleep, you know, like those, sound machines work really well. Yeah. If they work great for you, fine, 'cause some people need, depending on what your, where your home is located, maybe you're close to a street and you're trying to filter out, you know, traffic noise. Yeah. but I think the biggest solution to sleep is [00:43:00] don't eat three hours before you go to bed.
Hard to do. It is hard to do, right? And so that's really a lot, a lot about meal planning and meal preparation. And then the other thing that people do is they watch TV or they get on their, their device, and they're, like, doom scrolling until all hours of the night, and that's the worst thing that you can do.
You gotta shut your brain off. You gotta allow your brain that, time and place to, to sleep. I know with Parkinson's, a lot of folks lose their sense of smell, but if you haven't lost your sense of smell, then some aromatherapy like lavender or something like that. Excellent.
And meditation, are you a fan, or? Huge fan Okay. Speak to the benefits of meditation, if you would It's again connecting the mind and the body. And to, 'cause when we, when we go to bed, our brains are still swirling, right? Mm-hmm. We're still trying to, to process everything that we did that day, everything we have going on tomorrow.
whether it's meditation or prayer, you know, [00:44:00] whatever speaks to them- Sure ... it's connecting their breath. It's connecting their brain to their body, and it really just helps to deescalate the cardiac rhythms. It helps to deescalate breathing rhythms and regulate cardiac and breathing rhythms.
It's setting that body into a state where it's not so hypersensitive and hyperreactive. So we wanna really just deescalate your world around you and just find that little bubble that is just you. some folks are really good at meditating. Some people are 10-second Tom when it comes to, um- Right ... to meditation.
Both are correct. You do what you gotta do. Guided meditation, there's a lot of apps out there that help with guided meditation. If it works for you, do it. Well, it's, it's common for the monkey mind to kind of sneak back into the meditation, but if- Right ... you keep returning to your intention, it seems to, you get, you develop the skill just [00:45:00] like everything else that you practice.
Thousand percent agree, and it's the old counting sheeps. Well, start with counting your breaths Your inhalation, count your exhalation. Or box breathing. I'm a big fan of box breathing. Good. Would you explain box breathing Absolutely. So box breathing is very intentional breathing. So you're gonna breathe in, for example, for five seconds.
Mm-hmm. You're gonna hold your breath for five seconds, exhale for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds, and then try to increase your box. Maybe go to six seconds. Go to seven seconds. Excellent. I have a light that changes colors based on your box breathing rhythm. Okay. So five seconds, six seconds, and then it has different light sequences for different breathing patterns, so like a four, seven, eight.
it's incredibly beneficial. I seem to need to do it more than I realize, but that's pretty much everything with exercise. There's a wide variety of things to do, and it becomes a paradox of choice sometimes. [00:46:00] Absolutely. there's times where, you know, maybe I've had a very challenging day.
I refuse to say I've had a bad day. You'll never, ever hear those words come out of my mouth. I do not have bad days. I have challenging days. And it's just changing that language in our head, right? Yeah. So even if my daughter has had a very challenging day, I will, to deescalate my brain, I will lay in bed, close my eyes.
I spritz my bed with some eucalyptus and lavender es- you know, oil. Oh, great. And then I'll lay there and just do my box breathing, and that's how I can start to, you know, again, just deescalate the stress from my day at that cellular level, and next thing you know, I'm sound asleep. That sounds like great advice, so thank you for that.
Of course. And speaking of, speaking of breath, does breath work work its way into your program 100%. And so when I do that initial intake and I do the oxygen saturation- Mm-hmm ... if I can, let's say if somebody is, they're saturating oxygen maybe at 92 or [00:47:00] 93%, even in the office here, I'll tell them, "Okay, breathe in like I just took cinnamon rolls out of the oven.
Now exhale like you just ate one too many." And then I'll wait a minute, and I'll look at their oxygen, and their oxygen increases. So then a lot of times with Parkinson's, and again, it's the effects of the disease, it affects the respiratory, it's called tidal volume. It's, so your tidal volume- Mm-hmm
is how, think of a, like a, a wave. So in, on the hospital monitor, that blue wave, we want that wave to be nice big waves. We don't want them big and short, 'cause that's somebody that's panting. We want big, long, slow breaths. So in the class, we'll do breathwork as part of the exercise. Oh, that's great. I'm sure people find it very relaxing.
Very much so. So what, what other tips have you stumbled upon that seem to work with the majority of people? start small. You know, just absolutely start small [00:48:00] because it's overwhelming, right? In the fast-paced world that we live in, people are trying to navigate so much, and then when you do have a diagnosis such as a movement disorder, now you're also toggling doctor's appointments, and you have to go to your regular dental appointment and your regular eye appointment and your regular this appointment and that appointment.
So start small. You don't have to exercise seven days a week. Build, build, build. Excellent. Some days are peanuts and some days are shells. That's part of the journey. It's a good way to look at it. I like that you say you're not having a bad day, and it's just challenges, you know, buffered with days where there aren't as many challenges.
But it seems like problem-solving is what we're doing. Absolutely. So, so a diagnosis of Parkinson's, although it's a dramatic diagnosis, it's not something that is, we've been dealing with problems our whole life, so this just becomes another one to- Pretty much ... put on the list and, develop a mindset around [00:49:00] being able to tackle.
1,000%, and- and please understand, I'm not trying to dilute or minimize the know, the, the shock that that diag- that comes with that diagnosis. But like I said, that diagnosis does not define you, and mindset will Yeah, it's amazing, because the variety of symptoms that seem to hit you on any given day.
Sure. And they seem to bounce around. You have to wake up and do an assessment and try to figure out what, what you're dealing with. So whether I'm stretching first or doing pushups first or breathing or my gratitude work, it all seems to get done. But it's, it's just a matter of what's moving to the top of the list on, on my body on any given day.
Absolutely. And so that being said, the other thing that I'll leave w- you with too, is a lot of times Parkinson's patients like to compare themselves to other Parkinson's patients. Right. And comparison is the thief of joy. Very true. in general, not just Parkinson's. Not just Parkinson's, that's every day, every [00:50:00] single one of us, every single day.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Celebrate your strengths. Some days are peanuts, some days are shells. Celebrate your strengths because your good days taught you how to get over the challenging days. Right. And good days always follow challenging days. They do. it, it's kind of beautiful, like how much of this applies to our regular aging process- Right
and not just Parkinson's. Absolutely. So, so everyone in this community can kind of relate to it on some level. I can't run a five-minute mile the way I used to, but I can still- Right ... I can still run. Absolutely. And so as athletes, as we age, we come to these hurdles and these inflection points that we have to accept some limitations- Sure
and adapt our lifestyle accordingly. So if you live long enough and you're fortunate enough to make it to 102, you're probably not doing what you were doing when you were 22. Right? So it's, it's a beautiful thing that, you know, life seems to balance itself out It does. Celebrate your strengths.
[00:51:00] If this episode helped, share it with a coach, an athlete, or someone who needs a little momentum. And if you have a topic you want us to tackle, send it in. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening. Catch you on the next one.