When I first went, it was to find out about getting help for an acute problem I was having with my hand. Anthony, in his calm, professional, convincing way, told me they didn’t work on specific body parts, but worked in a holistic manner from a postural approach. Interesting, I thought. In fact, pain in my lower back had been keeping me from exercising, yoga, strength training for the better part of a year, and had become a much more negative factor than my hand–bothersome, but not as compromising as my back problem.
An Aleve regime, as well as Arnica (a homeopathic), had managed the pain, but did not give me the peace of mind I’d needed to resume the physical challenges I was used to enjoying, backpacking, for instance and exercising at the YMCA five days/week.
Our conversation (as well as some impressive articles and awards on the wall) made me as curious as hopeful about being in the body I had become used to taking care of, so I took a leap and signed up for the 3-month
program of weekly visits. After an interview and being closely inspected in a multitude of ways, (grid on the wall, gait assessment, etc) my a two-hour evaluation with Anthony and his second in command, Wendy, was over and I walked out with photos and descriptions of my the program that had been developed for my daily use.
Next week, I came in for a half hour appointment with Wendy. At that time I did the exercises with her for fine tuning, and always learned something to improve my technique. The following week, my appointment was with them both, an hour in which I was interviewed to check for progress (or lack thereof), given a
new exercise program to go through, and left with my new handout and its great descriptions and photos.
So on it went, every week, alternating a half-hour appointment with one that lasted an hour. Every hour visit included an interview, postural assessment, and exercises.
By the end of my three months, Anthony had me pain free, and had begun to insert some physically challenging exercises into my program, not only corrective ones.
To tell the truth, the exercises he taught were different from anything I had ever imagined, were to be done at about a 70% level of effort, and should not cause any pain. It is truly unique and I cannot say how it worked, other than to say that it was amazingly effective and now that I am two weeks into the Y again, running and getting back into shape, I am feeling confident that the problems are in my past, and if I have others in the future, I have a place to go for corrections via exercise, my preferred course of therapy.
Anthony also offers small group workouts–sometimes two-week trial sessions for free!–and I look forward to trying them when I think I’m ready. My buff neighbor took some, and she said they were demanding, different, and just what she wanted.
My hand? Well, it’s damage from a nerve root injury and is slowly getting better and better. Obviously, it’s going to take some time, but compared to my long-term, now-in-the-past back problem, it’s minor indeed.
The office is organized, everyone is friendly and professional, and I give this small, dynamic business a grade of 100%!