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Thread: Good morning and thank you!

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Helsinki, Finland
    Posts
    6

    Default Good morning and thank you!

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    Well good morning everyone. I don't usually post on this forum, but this one feels too good to leave out.

    Long story short; I've been working as a physiotherapist at an assisted living center for elderly people in Finland for the last year and a half. Being an early intermediate barbell trainee myself I frequently, most of the time actually, use this approach with my patients. The results are amazing, but the method is often frowned upon by other medical personnel, which is naturally quite frustrating. However, there is one example in particular that I would like to share with you.

    Last year I started physiotherapy with this fragile 39kg 84 year old lady. Let’s call her Eve for convenience. She had been wheelchair bound since 2008 due to a mixture of medical conditions; Alzheimer’s, depression, severe arthritis and spinal stenosis to name a few. Eve needed assistance in many of her ADL-activities as well as her transfers between the bed, wheelchair, and the toilet seat due to poor strength and balance as well as loss of ROM. I suppose anyone could be depressed from this kind of dependent life.

    We started training. I substituted the basic barbell lifts with what was available in our facilities; mainly the leg press, back extension and pull-down. In our first actual strength training session Eve could not complete a whole set of five reps at 5kg on the leg press, but we kept at it. A week later she succeeded at 3x5 @ 5kg. Fast forward 8 weeks of linear progression and Eve made 3x5 @ 40kg. At this point she also took her first independent steps with a rollator since 2008 and was able transfer from her bed to the wheelchair independently. Now, this is was a big moment for her. It is incredible to go from being totally dependent on other people to be able to go to the bathroom and take a dump all by yourself. Today, a year and a half later, Eve walks around independently with the aid of a rollator, her weight has gone up quite a bit and she feels more focused and alive than before.

    So I wanted to take a moment to thank Mark and all the other good people behind Starting Strength whose dedication and expertise made this possible. Since my Bachelor in Physiotherapy did certainly not give me the knowledge needed to teach people walk again.

    Sincerely,

    Simon

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Posts
    7

    Default

    Thank you for sharing. This was wonderful reading. I have all the feels now.

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