(Music) Welcome back to Family Health Matters.

I’m Shelllly Irwin.

With me today, Allie Cochran, executive director of the David D. Hunting YMCA.

Terence Rubin, physical therapist at PT Sports Pro.

He’ll treat you like a Pro, and Sasha Wolff, executive director of Still I Run.

Let’s all run after this.

We probably will want to.

That’s kind of the goal.

Or walk or skip or roll.

A question for all three of you, a standard question, how are you involved in this world of wellness and movement?

Allie?

Yeah, so at the YMCA, I would say we’re the epitome of wellness.

So from things like the pools, to group exercise, personal training, the Y is a longstanding organization about 180 years.

Wonderful.

And many branches in our own backyard.

Yeah, Yep, six branches..

But DDH right around the corner.

Right downtown.

Yeah you go the heart of it.

Thank you for your leadership.

Terence, talk about you and yours.

Yeah, with PT Sports Pro, we really wanted to shift to focus from injury and illness to sports and wellness.

So wellness is critical part of who we are and our mission out there to help people stay well.

Yes, we’ll dig into that topic.

Sasha Wolff talk about you and Still I Run.

Yeah, Still I Run is a national organization that helps people run for mental health, so kind of educating people that it can be good for your mental wellness and helping people overcome many barriers they may have in participating in that sport for their own mental health.

So there’s such a thing as an exercise high?

Yes, absolutely.

I can I can attest to that as a runner.

I’ll stay with you, Sasha.

How important is it to move?

It’s so vastly important.

I mean, not only for your physical health, which is so great and we think about moving for a physical health, but for me, on a personal level and for the people of Still I Run, moving for your mental health is it’s the foundation of everything everything.

Your mental health really is the foundation of everything.

If you don’t have good mental health, it’s not good for your work, your relationships, your personal life, all of that stuff.

So we move for the specific benefit of helping our brains, and it’s everything to me, and people still I run.

Terence, why move?

We As humans, we are designed to move.

We’re not designed to sit still and do nothing.

So part of who we are, it’ part of our DNA is to move.

And that movement helps us to stay physically, mentally and spiritually fit.

And all three components are important to live a good, healthy balanceed life.

Good.

And a lot of movement happening at the Y.

Why move from your perspective?

Yeah, lots of movement.

I think the cool thing about the Y is movements around others.

And so literally from the age of infant to 100 plus, there’s movement, and that just inspires everybody around the YMCA.

What’s your definition of wellness, Allie?

Holistic.

So here at the Y, we explain it as spirit, mind, and body, so the whole person.. And wellness from your standpoint.

You, a healthy state at all levels, and whether that is, again, you know, the three components that we always reference, physical, spiritually, emotional but also looking at wellness from the point of, you know, how we live, breath and move, how we eat, and how we sleep, all of those components add into us being well.

We’ll get to that number of hours.

I should be sleeping as they say.

Sasha, how would you define wellness?

I mean, the same.

It’s just a holistic thing.

It’s not just mind or body or spirit.

It’s everything, all three in tandem working together Terence, a little anatomy physiology 101, this science behind my why we should move physiologically.

Yeah, so, you know, the big cardiioascular system is critical to push blood to all parts of our bodies.

So keeping that healthy is going to be important.

And even if you have, you, mental health issues or other physical disabilities, you still need that cardios system to function.

And’s’s why I think it’s so important to create movement in everything.

I work with folks that have different levels of disabilities and injuries and getting them back to what we call a state of health is returning back to movement and function.

Are we still talking the need for cardiovascular exercise stretching and strengthening as part of that whole unit there?

Yeah, and I do think that’s important that you mentioned the stretching bit because we often don’t stretch enough.

I remember in our PT program, our lecturer used to say, take a lesson from the cats.

What’s the first thing they do when they get up after their bed?

They stretch.

And then they can jump onto a countertop or catch that bird and they move very quickly.

And so in order for us to move and function, stretching is important.

Take home message, Think like a cat.

But don’t jump off the table.

Do it if you want.

Are there right and wrong ways to move?

Yes.

The biggest wrong way to move is to not move, right?

So, yeah, they are definitely right and wrong ways to move.

And I think sometimes when we we get into this idea of, oh, I want to do something, and we’re in such a hurry to jump to this point that we don’t take the little steps in between, to listen to our bodies, to feel the stretch, the movement and to work with what we have and push that envelope a little bit at a time.

But it’s just jumping to that finish line.

Allie, I walk into the y and I ask, I want to get well, I want to move.

How does it happen?

There’s multiple ways to happen.

What we do at the y is we always ask what you’re interest is, and then we we can vary you to that.

A lot of times, it’s just getting around people.

It’s starting to walk the track.

It’s getting into the treadmill, it’s getting into something maybe like personal training or a group X class.

So it’s really up to that person and what their interest is, but I will say that we have an interest for everybody and everything.

Back to lifestyle.

Yeah, right?

And Sasha, again, tell me a little bit the backstory behind Still I run, maybe a bit of your journey and that it’s never too late to begin movement after perhaps a challenge?

Yeah, yeah, it’s a deeply personal thing for me.

I was hospitalized for depression and anxiety for a week at Pine Rest here in the Grand Rapids area.

And, you know, they taught me a couple of different things while I was there, managing your mental illness with medication and therapy, but also using some sort of extra healthy thing to put in your toolkit, your mental health toolkit.

And for me, I gravitated towards running.

I was like, itt’s easy, it’s cheap.. You know, let’s just do this And once I put together that this was beneficial for me, I started digging into the research around it.

It wasn’t just a, you know, a one time thing for Sasha Wolff.

Like, there’s actual data in and research behind movement and running for your mental health.

And I wanted to connect with other people that ran for mental health, so I started still I Run and now have thousands of people around the country running for their mental health and learning how it can be super beneficial for them.

Yes.

And obviously, that Endorphin High does carry over into other things in life.

Yeah, absolutely.

I you know, after discovering running for myself and seeing so many people discover running for their mental health, just their resilience and their mental strength and their mental clarity has been amazing, and even for myself, like, I said, it’s it’s fantastic.

Back to you, Allie.

Here we are somewhat winding down summer, not quite ready to say it’s over yet, but a lot of summer day camps for the kids zone in on how are we getting our kids well with movement?

Yeah, the special thing about the day camp at the Y is that they’re surrounded by movement So they’re located in a place where they can see people of all ages getting out and and moving.

So it’s influencing those little minds, like, hey, that can be me in 50 years, right?

Another thing special, too, is they have all the fitness and wellness at their fingertips, so they have access to the pool.

They have access to the gyms and all sorts of activities that we can just plug them in with them being there all day.

And they hope that the parents are good role models.

They’re getting them in, so that’s not Oh, Terence, how important is it to have a Garmin watch or a pedometer on my shoe to measure my movement?

Yeah, it’s not critical, but it is helpful.

And it all depends on what level you’re trying to access, your wellness.

And I think sometimes your devices can act as a good accountability partner, but sometimes it can impact you negatively if you get so reliant on the device that you’re not listening to your body itself and what it needs to be doing on that given day But I do think there’s some very good devices out there.

Garmin gives you lot lots of data, not just your your pace, your cadence, but also like, how well are you sleeping and what is your ar resting heart rate and all these other health, you, kind of indicators that can help you to then figure out where you need to make adjustments in your training and workout plan There’s other, Apple watches and pedometers are the simplest of simple, but at at this point, we’ve got so many, electronic devices, like built into our watches that you don’t see too many pedometers anymore.

Yeah, that was way back when.

Yeah.

What about how important are steps a day?

I want to say that was a little more popular back when, but are we still wanting those 10,000?

You know, that’s a great question, just recently, I was reading an article about that and how they’ve actually adjusted the number of deaths per day because at one point, they did say, you, 10,000 steps a day, and we were so hung up on that that we weren’t trying to even make it a valuable to do.

I bet you were $15,000.

Gosh, no, you’t funny, because I’m on my feet all day, but I’m just moving from patient room to patient room.

I get like 3,000 a day.

So in order for me to get a little bit more, I have to get out there and do it.

But I also understand that there’s other components of what I do, so I don’t just hang my hat on steps So I think if you’re in that 5,000, five to 6,000 steps a day, you’re still pretty good, but you want to make sure that you’re not just folks and just getting steps in, but focusing on all the other components.

So even when you’re stepping, if you’re going for a fast walk and you’re overextending your stride length, you can create injuries that is going to set you back.

And especially if you’re trying to like, oh, I got to get 2,000 steps in before I go to bed tonight, you don’t want to be in that state.

But building that in together with a good exercise program and some lightweight training, building up to a stronger program you know, getting a variety of exercise in that not just works your cardio system, but also gets those muscles to engage.

I think it’s a critical part of all of that.

And what we found more recently is having a coach to help you through, to deal with the planning of what you need to do.

Because when you just randomly try to do stuff without a plan, it’s hard to then stay engaged over the long term And then the fueling is also important.

Some people try to like, I need to lose weight, I’m going to exercise.

They don’t fuel enough.

And that’s like trying to run a sports car on, you know, very little to know fuel.

You’ve got to fuel well.

So working with a dietician, a nutritionist, is really important to kind of create that full balance We don’t know enough about our nutrition in this fast paced world with all the processorsed things that we can eat.

So having the combination of all of that creates the right environment for wellness to exist.

Yep, back to lifestyle.

Sasha, again, one comes to you, perhaps having had the some mental health issues.

Where does he or she start with not only getting involved with still I run, but starting a journey of moving?

Yeah, well, I would say 1 and and foremost, give yourself grace.

I think in this to your credit, like fast paced world, we just don’t take the time to give ourselves our own grace.

We give it to others, not ourselves.

But the other piece, too, is like for still I run in general here in West Michigan, we have something called the starting line scholarship.

It’s open to anyone who wants to start that journey of running for their mental health, or even moving.

We have walkers in the group as wealth because for us forward is a pace.

And so these individuals will work with them for eight to 12 weeks, training them for a 5K with a certified, amazing coach.

We do have a nutritionist that comes and talks to them about things.

They meet for boot camp fitness classes, there’s group mental health therapy, and we’re all approaching it from the lens of.

These are individuals who they’re suffering with a mental illness, or they have never done this before.

And so, like, we’re here to help people take that very first tiny baby step into movement for mental health, and it’s completely free this program.

But if people are afraid of getting into a program, there’s also a run group in the area in Grand Rapids and again, super hyper focused on that mental health aspect of it, it’s not, you know, how you look or how fast you are, or the gear or the clothes you’re wearing.

It’s, you know, just moving from mental health.

But we approach everyone with empathy and kindness and understanding, knowing that they’re going through struggles that we may not not be able to see.

Yep.

Take the first step.

Allie, what about some niche programming?

Say, for those who have gone through or going through like a cancer journey?

Yeah, so we have the lifestrong program and that’s certified trainers that are coming in at no cost to the participant cancer survivors.

So it is a chance for them to reclaim their health.

It’s two days a week and super impactful, and it’s a 16 week program, like I said, no costs to the participant.

Anything special for seniors?

Yes, lots of things for seniors.

So we have low impact things like aqua aerobics.

But one thing I want to elevate and talk about when I first came into this, why we were talking about Fit for Life And so that’s for active older adults who are coming.

It’s not just chair exercises.

They get on and off the floor.

It’s wonderful.

They made me take it.

And they told me, I can’t come once.

I have to come back.

And it’s 30 or 40 active older adults coming to this class.

And there’s one participant that we honored about a month ago of her member of the month.

And she comes in in a walker.

It takes her a bit to get up.

She can’t do all the movements, but she comes and she shows up and she uses a bar in the back to bounce herself.

And just the joy that she has when she comes to that, it’s amazing.

Good.

Congratulations to that member of the month.

It’s a goal to shoot for.

You had an exciting weekend.

Terence, at this point, a couple weekends ago with Michigan Titanium where you witnessed your son crossing the finish line.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I’ve been blessed to have family members that have gone through some incredible journeys My wife with cancer, my son would mental health, illness, and some of the things that he’s had to learn and deal with over the years.

The one thing that stood out when he had gone to Pine Rest as well, he came home from that experience, he said, that had one thing I’ve understood is that with mental health, it’s a journey I have to do for myself, but not by myself And so it’s important to any journey that we take that we surround ourselves with the right people.

This weekend, he did 140.6 mile triathlon, an ultra distance trap on the longest distance you could do.

And he approached me last year to say, how could I go from zero, no experiencing multi-sport, and finish the longest triathlon ever?

What would it take And can PT Sports Pro use its resources to train me?"

So it really took a village of our coaches, our trainers, you know, Todd Buckingham did all these performance tour testing.

Dave De Prada put together his program, and we got him week by week, and he followed it to the T, so focused because he knew he had purpose now.

And even when he executed his race, he had a great swimming and bike and then when he got to the run portion, he was done.

It was 92, wasn’t it?

Yeah.

But he on purpose even on the run when he saw someone walking ahead of him.

He’s like, let me walk with this guy and then maybe we can walk, run together."

And this is the part why we need community, why we need each other to fully embrace our wellness journey.

It’s never just something I go to the gym, I work out in my little silo with my headphones on.

Listen to the world around you.

We live in a beautiful space.

We just got to see it.

looked at starting my Team Triumph, you know, 16 years, 17 years ago,, we’re trying to figure out, how do we level the playing field for people with disability.

But when it comes down to it, oftentimes we have this race day experience, but how do we extend that outside of the race weekend?

Do we create enough space and place for them to come and work out?

So even at my practice, we have all the equipment set up so that anyone in a wheelchair could still work out and we work with them one-on-one, so they don’t have to go out.

What do I do today, you know, to actually move the needle or shift the bar?

So I think it’s important that when we have those kind of special groups like you guys are doing at the Y as well that we have to customize something for them that gets them active as well.

They are as important part of the fitness world as we are.

And so it’s great to see the captains and Angels on race Day line up in and race and work hard, but they put in work ahead of time.

We had a young man that did the John’s run the 5K, and I pushed him for the first two miles, and he spent a year training to walk that last mile with his walker, and he did.

And so, they have goals as well.

So how do we listen to that and help them accomplish them?

And he did, he did great.

He did like a 20 minute one mile with a walker.

Yeah.

That’s why we are here to talk about this.

Sasha, how do how do you set up your program Still I run to last Forever for that runner or Walker?

Yeah, so after they go through a program with us, they’re invited into the Still I Run community, and it’s mainly a virtual community, but after 2020, there’s virtual communities everywhere now.

But you’re really added into the Still I run community to you encourage you to continue the journey through our ambassador program, or we’ve got challenges people can do together We’ve seen so many people come in through one of our programs and then end up in another so that they always just feel like they’re a part of this family.

And we’re a big family that kind of gives each other grace and empathy, if you will.

So people posting all the time in our group that we have, like, hey, I couldn’t get out of the door today How do I keep going?

And someone else will chime in, like, hey, I’m having a hard time too.

Let’s just do it together.

At the same time, you know, this person’s in Idaho, this person’s in California, but they’re doing it at the same time in their own spots and just knowing that another individual is out there with them.

It’s that community feel.

Community is so important And again, back to the why.

I know you asked many of your members what’s your why?

Talk to me about this, Allie.

It varies.

Everybody has a different why.

I think that what we need to do and what we have been doing is celebrating that first step into the door.

It’s hard for people to get out and get around people.

But once they’re in, we want to love on them, and we want to connect them so they stay Like you said, community is so important, and I believe without community, it’s really difficult to keep going, but the wise is perfectly positioned to get people around people, which is so important.

On this journey of wellness, how important is sleep, Terence?

Critical.

I think when you sleep, that’s when your body is rejuvenating, is getting rid of toxins.

It’s kind of recycling, some of the strains and pains that we deal with in the daily basis.

I make a point of getting to bed super early, especially with my schedule.

I’m in bed by 915 sometimes because I know how important that rest is.

And I try to get, you know, it needs around seven hours of sleep, and I usually hit the bed and I’m out.

So I know I’ve had a busy day when I can just sleep that quickly.

But I think sleep oftentimes we spend a lot of time like scrolling to screens or watching TV and we have to learn how to disconnect.

Whenever I talk to someone that’s having difficulty sleep and they’re like, oh, yeah, I couldn’t sleep.

So I would just have my phone or I was on social media.. No, don’t do that.

I’ve actually found like a phrase that I would use.

My brain is kind of overacting, I will just like lay down and I’ll say this one phrase over and over again.

And every time my brain goes to something else, I come back to this one phrase, and it really does help.

And it needs to be something simple.

So I don’t want to count you know, sheep or something, but it’s the same idea, right?

Because when you count sheep, you got to think, okay, 199, what’s next, you know?

But, you know, for me, I use that Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

And that’s what, and something else comes in and I repeat that those two lines and I fall asleep So I think it’s important that we pay attention to how we sleep, and we make that as nature important part as we prep to go into a gym, as we prep to go to work, we need to prep our bodies to go to sleep as well.

Yes.

It’s so important.

And I think that’s where kind of the running comes into and movement in general.

It can help your sleep.

And if you’re not sleeping, you’re not resting, and if you’re not resting, your body doesn’t have a chance to repair itself.

Like sometimes you’re moving so fast, so hard that your muscles start getting sore and you need to rest.

So rest is so crucial for that next day.

And we do talk about good sleep hygiene at still I run because it’s part of the whole body, the nutrition, the sleep, the spirit, the mind, the body, everything.

Allie, Terence mentioned coaches, and you mentioned personal trainers.

Again, for someone who says, it’s time for me to move and get even more well.

That could be a tool I use, a personal trainer yeah?

As soon as someone signs up, we get them connected with something called a coaching connection.

And so that gets all the information from the person.

Like, what do you want?

And then typically the next step is then a personal trainer.

And we have personal trainers for every type of member.

We have all sorts of specialties as well.

And so that’s available to the members right at their fingertips.

All right, Terence, hydration.

Talk to me about this in our journey of wellness.

Yeah, we see a huge problem with correct hydration.

And even in this weekend of racing, people often think, I drank enough water, I had my eight glasses, but there is more than that that you need.

And also, when you’reare working out, you’re sweating, your sweat tastes salty, which means you’re losing that, which means you need to get more in.

So these muscle functions are going to occur.

So we recommend that if you’re working out on a regular base basis, but for every 100 pounds that you weigh, 70 ounces of fluid, and that fluid includes that water, gatorade, electrolytes, we’ll try to choose products that is going to enhance your system and fuel it well And when we get into the racing day mode, we’re also looking at taking electrolyte capsules and other products, goos and gumdrops and stuff that can help you get those electrolytes into your system.

We do a test at a practice, it’s called a sweat composition analysis.

And before I did that, I would take 350 milligrams an an hour of sodium, because I’m thinking that’s plenty.

Most people get maybe 100.

Well, when I did the test, I needed 1,250 per hour.

And when I stepped it up to that, I had a lot less cramping, a lot less fatigue, and my recovery was much.

better.

So from a hydration standpoint, we often think of in terms of just water, but having the other electrolytes in your system actually makes the correct electrolyte balance.

Talk about me more about Terence, your motivation.

Someone’s on a journey to get well, to move, and yet experiences an injury.

How do we mentally get through that?

Well, the first part of injuring ourselves, we go into that, you know what, I’m going to take time off.

I’m not a patient guy, I don’t want to take time off.

I want to be able to work through it.

So when our patients come in access accessing your physical therapist, go and seeing your physician, getting a referral in, if you need that, but accessing a physical therapist that understands your journey, is critical.

I had someone that I saw last week, and she was telling me me that she worked with a sports therapist, but this therapist that didn’t do anything active, didn’t understand the mentality of the sport that she was trying to get into.

And it was hard for her to take advice from that.

So we need to also live the things that we’re trying to preach in our practice.

And our practice, we all race.

I mean, I ran the London marathon the spring.

Everyone’s doing stuff, you know.

It’s crazy.

But that brings credibility to the patient and allows them to that journey for them.

So when someone walks in with an injury, most people are afraid of, oh, you’re going to make me stop doing what I’m doing?

And I’m like, no.

We’re going to help you through that journey.

What do you need to dial in so that you can continue doing what you’re doing?

So that’s an important part of recovering from injury, not just complete rest, but relative rest.

And the same with your organization.

There could be a week where I shut down, and I need to keep being prodded to move on.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, we really recommendend that people, if they’re having, you know, a mental health crisis or they’re having issues with their mental health and they can’t run for whatever reason, that they partner up with their therapists to chat through that.

But in terms of our community, we’re really there to be partners and cheerleaders to help them get out the door And we try and be with them every step of the way that we can.

Hmm.

I don’t making this a lifestyle.

Starting to wind down, give me a little pitch.

Allie, I know your DDH is going through construction, but this two will heel still get in the door?

Absolutely.

We are communicating as much as we can.

So construction is external and internal, so we’re also doing some renovations as well as the city for the soccer stadium.

But there’s no barrier to come in and promote that wellness.

That’s still operating and it will still operate.

Good.

All right, so again, one is interested, how does he or she make their way to become a member?

Yeah, stop in.

Anytime we do tours, we’re open 17 hours the day, most of the days, or grymca.org would be the website to start.

And in the next 24 to 48 hours, what is your goal to move?

Well, I moved this morning already.

And so lots of steps at DDH.

If you’ve been to DDH, there are about four flights, so that will be my plan this afternoon.

An elevator, if necessary.

Well, we don’t talk about that.

You do you, Sasha, what do you leave us with?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is that it’s so important to move for your mental health.

I know that’s like the basis of what still I run does, but I’ve seen so many people think about movement in terms of, you know, my blood pressure, my cholesterol, how I look, but I just really want to get the word out to as many people as possible, that movement can be medicine as well.

It doesn’t have to be running.

It could be biking, hiking, yoga, swimming, whatever form of movement you want, but it is so crucial for someone’s mental health.

And we’re doing do I start to find out more information?

Yeah, still IRun.org is where you can find us.

We also have a run chapter that meets the first and third Thursday of every month at Pinery Park and then we are currently have a wait list open for our starting line scholarship, the spring Cohort, which starts in December.

Wonderful.

And your accountability, please?

Last 24 or the future 24 hours?

Well, it will probably be a six mile run.

I have hood to coast in Portland, Oregon next week, so I kind of need to get in one last long run for that.

Yes.

So It’s been a delayed long run, but I need to get that in in the next 24 hours.

See, how this turns you into a machine??

Terence, I giving you the final Yeah, at PT Sports Pro, when we set about figuring out how we want to engage our community, we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just about illness and injury.

So to access us, you can, if you you have a question about something, we want to be there to answer that question.

If you just want to come in for a consult, it’s like, I need to do something with my body, or I have this injury that’s not keeping me from doing something, but should I keep pushing through?

So we have options there.

We also have the performance lab where you can test yourself and do a couple of baseline data from full body Dexer scan, VO2 max, lactate threshold testing.

And that data really helps you’t figure out how to push into the next level.

We also offer the one on one personal training in coaching, and that’s just a much, like if you want to get ready for a race or do you just need to get through life?

How do you find that balance And our dietician services are really important as well to pair it all in.

So the approach is to create a level of wellness that is all under one umbrella, easy to access.

Our mission is to make excellent care that’s that’s affordable and accessible.

So if you even look at our cost for what we charge for some of those things it’s really, you know, very affordable to our patients.

And once a patient walks through the door at the practice, they told us things that I can feed out I feel well in this space.

So creating the space, the environment is important as well.

Are the walls pink?

Yeah.

A couple of them are.

It’s not.

It’s tastefully done.

It’s tastefully done.

How do we find out more information?

PTsportspro.com.

We have a great online scheduling tool.

You can go right there, hit the button, schedule whatever you want right there in real time.

So we’ll love it.

Our patients love it too.

Good.

What’s today?

What was yesterday, or what’s tomorrow for Fitness?

I’m afraid my kid who just gets off this 140.6 mile journey goes, "Dad, we should run the marathon together."

So that means I’ve got two months to train for a marathon.

Okay.

So maybe there’s a marathon in this future.

I’ve got to sit down with him to figure out what am I doing?

Am I just going for a little jog or am I running 10 miles this weekend?

Yeah, it doesn’t fall.

Either way, with him, though, would give me the greatest joy.

I was going to say, the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, but everyone here on your own journey, thank you all for this.

Topic of movement and wellness.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

And as always, thank you for watching our family health matters.