EquiVita - Week 1

Client Stories
As EquiVita reached a major milestone in celebrating their 10th anniversary, they gathered some important moments from its ten year history that highlights what makes the clients so special. So sit back and enjoy reading through some of these cool stories.

Our fantastic new space provided us so much opportunity. As a staff, I knew we had to develop a way of working together to provide the best service possible. One of the complaints I often hear about the medical community is that every practitioner stays focused on a very narrow and specific area, yet often there are other areas of the body - much less a person's life - that are involved. People go from one doctor to another and are personally responsible for collecting the data and finding the connections - trying to ask just the right questions to figure out what to do about their health. From working in health care, I knew that from the professional side that there was so much fear of liability and of crossing boundaries that collaboration by the professionals was a challenge.

10 Weeks to 10 Years: Week 5

Week 6

Week 4

So, how were we going to bring together our professionals, who are trained to see the body in very different ways, to work together for the benefit of the client? Well, as luck would have it there are some rare spots in the medical community where this type of collaboration occurs from which we could learn. The Mayo Clinic is one such example. The key seems to be putting the patient at the center. I know this sounds crazy, because every hospital "staffs" (assigns care) patients with treatments by getting feedback from different practitioners, but that is not collaboration as I see it. This feedback model looks at the condition and not the patient first.

Back to EquiVita where we have practitioners that are trained in fields that are sometimes not really seen as professional, simply because the profession doesn't have the longevity in our society. To use the Mayo Clinic model, we needed staff that are at a level of comfort with their own knowledge, skills and abilities that they can respect each other enough to focus on what is right for the client - even if it goes against what they know.

This started a very challenging time for EquiVita and brought us to some key component foundations of belief. First: Always think of the client as a person. Second: One cannot know everything about the body. Third: There are many right ways.

Our goal is simple: To improve the health of those we serve. There are more ways to do this than there are people, and keeping our focus as a staff of professionals on this goal enables us to find solutions.

Meet one of our clients: Aaron
Recreational long-distance cyclist and very amateur cyclocross and mountain bike racer Aaron Beck used to consider lifting bean burritos to his face proper strength training and lying on a couch in front of movies and reaching for his beer sufficient stretching.

These days at EquiVita, Aaron, who has a history of sports-related injuries (partially torn rotator cuff, concussion, broken fingers and toes) and surgeries (knee and back) subscribes to a more progressive and comprehensive fitness plan. The 38-year-old free-lance writer and reporter works to strengthen his limbs, core, hips and back with EquiVita founder Adam Milligan three times a week and receives a monthly deep-tissue massage from Barbara Huebner.

"Of anyone I've worked with during physical therapy or in gyms, they know how to work specifically with every single person and maximize the time spent during a 60-minute session," Aaron said. "I don't know if my body was ever 'balanced', but working with Adam for an hour three days a week and getting a massage every month from Barb is pushing it closer to the realm of that description."

Aaron added that the last time someone could possibly describe his body as 'balanced' was "probably in 1988-the moment just before a cornerback's helmeted head plowed into my planted left knee during a junior varsity football game."

That audible pop of his ACL led to four knee surgeries by 2007 and a lifetime of favoring his "good" knee (his right knee). That, he said, coupled with sub-par posture, inconsistent weight training and non-existent hip-flexor strengthening, "probably led to a herniated disc in my back in 2002 and 2009 and a ruptured disc in 2010. Probably. Or maybe these things just happen. Maybe someone put a hex on me. Maybe I've done bad, bad things in a former life."

Aaron made his maiden visit to EquiVita in 2009 at the behest of a friend, EquiVita Transitional Fitness Trainer Tami Wise. Aaron had summoned Wise to his home to see if she could alleviate back spasms that had him pinned to the floor. Wise recalled that, "The spasms were severe - the kind of spasms that make a man think of nothing in the past or the future: a Zen-like spasm that puts a man in the moment and nowhere else."

In time, Aaron made his way into EquiVita, improved his back strength thanks to work with Adam and Barb, took a job loading and delivering Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, and in time, stopped going to EquiVita and stopped doing the body balancing exercises he'd learned.

"I was tired as hell after slinging ice cream all day," Aaron said. "I figured I was getting all the strength training I needed. Plus, for me, it was expensive, you know? I'd never paid to exercise beyond paying a monthly gym membership or an entry fee for a cyclocross race or a charity road ride."

In February 2010, though, Aaron was in the most severe pain he had ever experienced.

"I couldn't stand up straight. I couldn't sit without squirming and cursing. I couldn't sleep. I was crawling to the bathroom and kitchen. I was watching way too much early morning local news. I wasn't working because I was eating Percocet. I couldn't stand up, let alone lift gallons of ice cream all day or drive."

Diagnosis: Ruptured disc between the L4 and L5 vertebrae that was severely compressing a nerve in his left leg.

Following surgery March 3, Aaron was advised not to lift any significant weight for six weeks. Upon visiting his surgeon a month and a half after the operation, Aaron was told by his surgeon that he was "healed" and that he should progress with normal activities.

"I asked if I should go to physical therapy and he said only if I wanted to," Aaron said. "This talented, articulate and worldly man knew how to open my back and lop off the offending portion of my disc, but I thought he was insane when he said I was healed. It was as if my body was a Pontiac Fiero that just needed a new gasket and I was as good as new. Doing nothing to prevent a disc from rupturing again just seemed loony."

He said he looks forward to coming to EquiVita every time because "Adam and everyone here consider everything in my body's history and present state every single time I work out with them. Everything they do is tailored to me and everything they do for other clients is suited to fit them. They don't use any textbook applications for fitness, strengthening and conditioning."

"Plus, you know, I'd rather pay someone who knows what he's doing to help me get into good shape than pay someone to operate on me again. I'll take the atmosphere of EquiVita over the atmosphere of an O.S.U. East operating room any day."