The power of a good support system: One woman’s story of getting her butt in shape with the help of KOA Fit and a bunch of other people too!
I found Siri at KOA Fit a few years ago for massage therapy after my previous massage therapist had moved. Massage was keeping me going; my knee was banged up from playing tennis, my back was messed up from years of carrying kids and diaper bags on my hips and who-knows-what else, I was starting to get migraines as I got older, my workdays sitting at a desk all day were excruciating for my hip flexors (and everything else). Siri would always give me some stretching and exercises to do in between massage sessions, and those exercises became key to keeping me upright and from being in pain all the time.
One day after massage, I said, “You know, Siri, I should just make an appointment to see you in the gym since you’re giving me so many exercises to do.” We set up a time, then that led to another time, then pretty soon I was going every couple of weeks.
I was getting a little bit stronger, and I had some tools in my toolbox now for getting through the day: stretching to do at work, a therapy ball to sit on at my desk, a foam roller in my living room, and a variety of bands, balls, and other exotic equipment (a racquetball for rolling my feet?!) in my desk drawer that my coworkers found fascinating and looked for excuses to stop by my desk to see my latest acquisition.
Soon, my supervisor was asking me to show her some stretching to do on our breaks.
One of my favorite things to do for exercise is to walk around the lake near my house. Siri put together an exercise circuit for me to do when walking. I just needed a few bands tucked into my pocket. I could not believe how much of a workout I could get by just using my own body weight with a park bench and a few bands! Neither could my weekly walking friend, who bought a few bands for herself and started asking if we could “do the circuit” when we went walking.
New Year’s of 2019: one of my brothers in the Midwest needed some motivation for exercising. (Midwest winters are brutal for getting outside, or even out to the gym). He asked the other three of us siblings if we could do a daily group text, checking in and motivating each other to do some daily exercise and keep moving. The four of us have kept that up to this day, over a year later! As much as I loved going to see Siri in the gym, there were some days that only my siblings’ texts showing me what THEY were doing to keep moving that day, got me there. Siri was on board with keeping our text stream going, and she would take some pictures of me doing my exercises at the gym, which I would share with my siblings. There was more than one text back to me saying, “Well, I was going to sit down and watch football, but I saw your photo of you at the gym and decided to get up and get moving instead.”
