BOB'S STORY
I’m a woodworker. A cabinet maker. Have been for a long time. It’s grueling work. Physically demanding.
After long years of hard labor, I was promoted to management. I don’t have to do as much punishing work as I used to, and it’s a good thing, because all that backbreaking work was literally backbreaking.
Wait. I never literally broke my back, but I sure did do some damage, and I really felt it when I was required to move heavy stuff around, which I still am, from time to time.
When I was out of the office, pitching a potential customer, I noticed Paradise. I walked, across the street, and through the doors. B I N G O!
One look around, and I knew Paradise is what my aching back needed.
I wasn’t going to be a fulltime desk-jockey. To keep my job, I was going to have to be fit enough to step away from the desk, and get physical, and there’s no such thing as, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” when you have to push and shove.
The aquacise class I was taking at Paradise was great for relieving the pain in my back. But when I met Starr, and she showed me some stretches, and exercises, specifically for my back, everything changed. My back not only stopped hurting, it felt strong again.
The stretches released the strain in my muscles from my hips to my ribs. Then Starr hooked me up to the Aqualogix drag equipment, which increased resistance. That’s how you strengthen your back. And that’s how you keep your job.
I no longer fear that my back problems, now minor, will result in me losing my job. I have to be careful, but I can still bull around heavy stuff with the kids, thanks to Paradise.
My job demands a lot of my time, so I don’t always get to spend as much time at Paradise as I’d like. Mostly, I like going in on Saturdays, when it’s not so busy. I workout on my own, but I still take the occasional class to learn new things I can do to improve on what I’ve already achieved.
And the far infrared sauna is a perfect compliment for my exercise regimen. An hour in the pool, followed by a half hour, sometimes more, in the sauna, and I feel like a million bucks.
Sometimes, after a good workout, I just float around on a noodle, weightless and care free. And pain free!
On a lazy Saturday afternoon, Paradise is a much better place than the couch.
Some of the kids at the shop are intrigued by my comeback. I suppose they thought it was over for me, the poor old-timer. But I showed ‘em! And they now know that I’ll be around until I take my retirement.
Those kids think they’re indestructible. Well, so did I. But they will learn, probably the hard way, that a lifetime of physical toil comes at a price. I tell them they should get ahead of the game, by coming to Paradise, but they don’t listen. Something tells me that I’ll see them at Paradise, sooner or later.