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Member Spotlight: Arnie Addison

Personal Trainer: Branch Nautu

With a strong core and hard work,
Arnie is traveling easier and sleeping better!

Member Spotlight: Arnie Addison

Before I met Arnie, I was informed of his health history and some of the elements we'd be working with in getting him back into prime condition. He had a muscle tear in one leg and a partial stroke which caused a decrease of function in several parts of his body. I knew we had our work cut out for us. It wasn’t hard to notice Arnie’ s favorite and easiest exercise was his standing pushups. When we first met, 20 push ups was pretty much the max. Now, a couple of sets of 40 or even 50 are easily his top range. On his best day he recorded 80 pushups, which surprised even himself. Now we have to find ways to make the exercises harder in order to increase the workload. When we first started, he had difficulty moving from sitting to standing. He was limited to the leg press due to tear and balance issues, but with assistance, he is now able to do squats. Each session he expresses that he feels like he’s able to go deeper in his squats and that they’re becoming easier while his repetitions continue to increase.

Arnie knows how important the core is so he’s always sure to work on this critical area. With his new core program, not only is he able to do more abdominal exercises, he is now able to do most of the work with less assistance. At the end of his workout sessions, Arnie does sprints on the bike, a part of the workout he has always dreaded. When we first started, he could only do a few then stated, “I quit!” Now, not only is he able to sprint at higher intensities but even after several sprints when asked if he has more in him, with ease his reply is “SURE!” The best part is seeing his heart recover at a quicker rate.

Arnie travels often so having had a decrease of function it has made dealing with luggage quite a hassle. Now Arnie expresses how much easier it is to handle his luggage, from placing them onto carts to taking them off the carousel. He’s also expressed how his body feels tighter. What he loves most is that when he works with his personal trainer, he can always count on a good night's sleep.