In Their Own Words

And first question right off the bat, what was life like before we started working together? I was on a mission, and I was getting nowhere fast. I was going to the gym on my own, trying to lose weight, making myself crazy with that. I was lacking energy, and I was considerably more in weight, which, of course, when you're dragging around baggage, it's going to be heavy. It's going to take your lackluster away. And that's what it was like. It was weight tuffer, weight tuffer. Yeah, yeah. And what was your, what was, you know, what was your biggest complaint during that time frame? Like, well, you know, was it doing day-to-day things? What do you think? Yes, day-to-day things. A few months prior to meeting you, my husband had passed away. And of course, he was always my dynamo. He picked the heavy stuff up, you know, all the heavy labor stuff. But he passed, and then I'm here in Florida. I'm transplant from New York, so here in Florida by myself, alone, and I'm saying, wow, there's a lot of things that need to be done. And my best time is very early in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. That's my creative time, and matters and things I should not be doing when you're alone by yourself. And it was tough. I mean, you had to see me going four o'clock in the morning with a ladder, and I'm going to hang something, which my creative mood. Yeah, it was tough, you know. I heard the testimonial—well, not testimonial—I heard you mention about getting down on the floor. I couldn't. Yeah. It would take me ten minutes to get up. I mean, there was just— And I remember, like, very specifically too, like that's one of the things when we first met, you were like, you know, you told me the backstory and what had happened, and you're like, I realized I'm scared. You're like, I'm a little afraid to just do, like, basic stuff at home. That's right.

Your method of reinforcement and positive attitude towards accomplishment makes you different than any other trainer I've ever had. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. You're welcome. It just comes as we speak here. Thank you. No, it's true. And I, I'm not a young guy. I'm 65 years old, and I think that's something else. I don't think most trainers know how to work with people over 50. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But I think they treat everybody as if they're coming in to do a world weightlifting championship. And I don't. That's not really the goal. The goal for me was to get somewhat stronger, but to get the balance and get the mobility back. Yeah. So that's kind of what I was looking for. And I think most seniors are probably looking for that versus trying to bench lift 300 pounds. None of us like to admit that we're aging and getting older, but there's signs of it. And, you know, the signs of it are immobility, bad balance, falling, you know, and it's frightening as the person experiencing it, but it's also a vanity thing where you just, you know, I kidded you. I said, I don't golf, but I'd like to be able to pick up a golf ball out of a cup, you know, bend over and do that. Still getting towards that goal, but at least I can get stuff off the floor. I think my stamina is better than it was before, for sure. My overall strength is better. Am I Superman? No, but I'm better, you know, and improving every, you know, every week I would say I'm getting stronger. So those are the— there's a reason to keep going, I guess is what I'm saying. I do three days a week, which I never envisioned really from the beginning, but I think I started at one, and you said, you know, maybe you want to step it up to two, and then two wasn't really— Yeah, maybe I was getting more attuned to it, and then we stepped it up to three, and I'm comfortable with three. I'd actually be comfortable with four. I actually wonder sometimes if I should do it every day, but you've taught me that resting the body is a good thing. It helps you accomplish. So, you know, three or four days a week, an hour each, to me seems to be ideal. I can fit it into my schedule. What would you say to anyone who is unsure about joining the program? Well, I would search your soul and say, why am I unsure about this? And define in your mind why you wouldn't do it. One of the things will be cost. One of the things will be time commitment. And it's really an investment, right? And we talked about that. It's an investment. It's like you can go to a home ten years earlier than you need to if you're not exercising, and a home is going to cost way, way more. Or if you fall, let's say you fall, you know, okay, now I'm going to need a hip operation or something like that. My grandfather fell at 82 and broke his hip and went in the hospital and died of pneumonia. Wow. Yeah, it wasn't the hip. It had nothing to do with the hip operation other than he caught pneumonia while he was in the hospital. Wow. So, you know, literally a fall cost him his life. So how valuable is your life? And like you said, what do you pay to live in your home? You said you don't have to tell me a number, but you said, Bruno, you told me, you're living in your body. That's your real home. So what are you paying to live in your home? And, you know, really nothing other than food and shelter. But you taught me how to value that space, and it's well worth the investment. Yeah. Man, that's perfect. I couldn't have said it better myself. That is, that is, whenever I do these testimonies for anyone watching, it's always good to hear some of the things we've been discussing over the last few months. And because a lot of it's a mentality shift too. It's not just the exercise, right? It's like, where do I want to get in life? What do I want to do? What do I enjoy? Can I do these things? And if exercise is going to help you with that, it's a pretty strong why. It's a pretty good motivator for the days you don't want to do it. You know, it creates that consistency. So, perfect, man. Thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. That is one of the rewards, is a mentality change. You know, like I'll see something on the floor and I'll go, I can pick that up now. You're excited. You're like, honey, honey, nope, nope, nope. Honey, I got this.

Well, I was having a couple problems with the lower back pain. I was kind of taking it easy and losing a little bit of muscular strength and a little bit of balance. What are things like now? Definitely building a lot of muscle, especially my arms. And today I noticed a lot more stability in my legs. Nice, nice. And what exercise? Well, as I get around, I'm a little more steady on my feet, not getting quite as fatigued, and notice I'm not getting any extra aches and pains all the time. Yeah. So what has been your favorite thing about our process? It's kind of picked up my spirits a bit because I am more active on a regular basis, and I'm just kind of actually starting to enjoy it. One thing that just kind of popped in my mind on what's going on, I do have a little scoliosis in my back where we're leaning, and I'm slowly straightening up a bit. It's not gone, but, you know, you make comments and other people in the group of how I'm standing up a little bit taller. Question: What would you say to anyone who is unsure about joining the program? Give it a try. It's amazing how you can change, even though it's a slow process, because as you pointed out, we've been doing this for about eight months, and I know today a big change from eight months ago. You've worked through a lot of little problems with me, and we're taking step by step, and that's my message to anybody who hesitates in thinking it won't work, but it does take time.

What were some of the things that plagued you before you started, you know? When I say plagued, I mean, what were some of the pains, the things that maybe you're not experiencing now that you did before? Oh my gosh. I was in pain all the time. My back, my lower back hurt. And I attributed that from having, number one, poor posture, poor weak abdominal muscles. My hips hurt. My knees hurt. I mean, I was 50 years old and I felt like some days I felt like I was 100. Now I'm 65 years old, and it's like, you know, to me, okay, 65, it's just a number. As I'm aging, the last quarter of my life, I just, I feel wonderful exercising. And to me, even if I'm not working out with you, I'm busy. I'm busy. So I have, like, more energy. That's a big one. So, you know, you don't have— weightlifting is a good part of it because it helps build your muscles and, you know, your bones and stuff like that. So when you're going outside and you're pushing a lawnmower, like I do, you're not struggling and bent over the damn lawnmower trying to push it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, like day to day, I mean, that's— My day-to-day activities have gotten better. Yeah. People are very surprised, Breno, of, like, even my granddaughter said to me, Mimi... She goes, my God, she goes, You're a young grandma. I went, Well, what do you mean by that? Well, she says, you know, you're out there, you know, playing hopscotch, or you're lifting weights, or you're hauling, or you're, you know, you're walking the track with the dogs, or you're playing frisbee and blah, blah, blah. I go, Really? She goes, Yeah. She says, You just, like, get on a moped and off you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to give some encouragement to the people out there who think, Oh, I'm just getting old. That's just how it is, right? Your knee was hurting. I mean, your knee's still kind of... Yeah, a little bit here and there, but we're working on it, and we're working towards getting you up and down the stairs without having knee pain. And we've made progress. We've made some progress with that. But generally speaking, it's the reason people struggle is because they don't do anything about it. And what would you have to say to those people? I say, get off your ass and be proactive instead of reactive and taking a pill. You know, if you know that something's gonna, you know... I mean, we have in my family, arthritis. So it's like, hello, I know I've got chronic arthritis that runs in my family and a lot of health issues. So I'm being proactive because I'll be damned if I'm gonna be in a wheelchair or a walker when I'm in ten years. Yeah. Not to beat this up, I'm gonna tell you that, if you, you know, if you keep exercising consistently, strength training, it's only gonna go up. I've seen it happen. You could be 75 doing things that you didn't do when you were 55, just depending. Yeah. So I just, you know, to me, just, hey, get off the couch. And do something. It doesn't matter if you're gonna, if you're walking the dog outside, get off your derriere. Yeah. I'm just putting, you know me, I say. No, I hear you. I hear you, and I love it.

In probably February of 2000, I met Breno at the gym. He was introduced to me by someone else there, and I think the man that introduced him said, You ought to work out with him if you want to work on your golf game or you want to just get some more flexibility and mobility. And so I was introduced. We probably worked together three or four times, maybe a half a dozen times, and I was working on things that I had not worked on before that was really more functional fitness: the ability to bend, the ability to stoop, the strengthening core and hips, and trying to get some movement back in my legs. And of course, COVID hit, so then we worked out on Zoom or on computer or whatever, yeah, from home during the rest of the time I was here. So that's pretty much how I was. I was healthy, but didn't have the mobility and everything. What are things like now? So that was before, right? Had a lot of surgeries, a lot of mobility issues. Well, I was, when we started out, I was looking forward to getting back to playing golf. So some of the functional things that you had me doing helped to get enough balance and rotation to feel as though I could swing a golf club again. And I did that in 2020, even though COVID was here, golf courses were open with restrictions, so I did that. And continue to work out with you from Birmingham via iPad, and then back down here in 21. And I was doing better. The only times I felt good was when I was working out. After the two back surgeries, we were off for a while and have been back since I returned to the Cape, working out in person. And I'm now back to more functional fitness and mobility, and even doing some light weightlifting now. Still haven't gotten back to where I'm swinging a golf club with full swings, but I'm able to chip and putt and do stuff like that. Everyone's going to have issues, aches or pains or numbness or, you know, whatever. And you can either choose to sit there and get worse, or you can choose to improve it and improve yourself and slow down the process. What has been your favorite thing about our process? When it's over. So even when you know you got to... I have gotten a great deal out of the cable work that we've done because of the baseball swings and punches and actually twisting and moving the body, you're able to do a lot of functional things that take place in golf and sports or running or just moving or things of that sort. So probably I have gotten not more, but a great deal out of the cable work that we've done working on... Twisting-type mobilities, if you will. Yeah. And the other favorite things are really just the regularity of it. One of the things I don't like is taking the time to stretch and to foam roll, use a ball to work some of these areas, and that has been good for me because I wouldn't do it on my own. Don't quit. So whoever's on that other side, right, find someone that you aspire to, find someone that helps you think about your mental attitude, and just keep plugging away every day. Little by little, day by day, we get to points where you're doing things that you didn't think was possible before. It's better to burn out than rust out. Another one. It's better to burn out than rust out. You heard it here first, guys. Thanks for watching this testimonial, Bill. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. You're very welcome.