With Vital Pursuit, I knew the first day it was different then anything I'd encountered. Since…read morethen, many of my ideas of fitness, and exercise... have been dissolved as misguided. On my first session I asked my trainer about a technique on doing bicep curls... and he said "it depends on whether you want to look strong, or be strong". Given that he trains pro athletes as well as me, kids, and every day people, he could have trained me for either answer... but in time I realized I wanted *neither*. Rather, I want healthy movement and capability for my physical hobbies/requirements. I want to move like a panther, rip through trees like a gorilla, and live as long as a redwood. With help from Vital Pursuit, I've found my *actual* idea of health -- and not a magazine's idea of how to achieve health.
Instead of no pain no gain, and someone shouting, or "boot camping," imagine being told over and over "slower", "less weight", and "fewer workouts" and instead always targeting the "minimal effective dose"... in time what remains are intentional and therapeutic workouts that can be as difficult as my will allows on that day (most days, not a lot, but sometimes I'm in the mood to dig deep)... The sessions are filled with simple and relatively easy patterning of movements with less weight than my ego would prefer; but with corrections to subtleties of form that moves many exercises toward more full body connection - The coaching on these types of minor changes can really seem like magic. For example, I once couldn't believe that planks on finger tips would require me to tighten my core more, apparently due to the chain of muscle and fascia along that route. From my fingers to my core?! I couldn't believe it, but in this case rather than argue, I was asked to just try it. Turns out... that tension in a finger plank *does* require more core strength to support it. Try it now if you want!... and maybe also see that the way the body tissue connects is not being taught in traditional places, but it helps to have a trainer that has invested years in researching and implementing the knowledge. Occasionally, I get curious, and I do something from the past like a curl or a bench press or squat -- juuuust to see if I'm *really* getting stronger at that stuff too -- and I'm amazed at how I'm stronger at all those things than when I focused on those exercises. How? How?!!! And if I ask, "how?" my trainer will describe just how on cellular level, system level, evolutionary level, psychological level...
Also my whole family trains there. My wife for running performance -- and also my kids (which he's a terrific role model for heath and exercise). What a gift to them to learn early that there are fitness experts just as there are teachers, lawyers, and doctors -- and if you happen to find those very rare gems of skill vastly different from their peers, it can save your life. I get that this testimony is a small data set, but both daughters have had great reversals in scoliosis curvatures... one can't be sure what would've been if they hadn't trained with Vital Pursuit, but my trainer was already informed about scoliosis, and then invested more time and research to help my girls. I've literally watched bones slowly move back into place that can't be explained otherwise (and is quite rare to happen for folks with spinal curvature).
Big talk, I know -- and Vital Pursuit's trainer(s) doesn't usually make speeches about how different their approach and results are -- probably because that's said *all* the time in this industry. But also because my trainer is a kind, curious, humorous, and has and intense interest in helping others -- and I think he tries not to come off as over zealous. There's really no way to know until trying I suppose - and for me I knew right away, for what that's worth. Vital Pursuit has always been helpful - be it for exercise, nutrition, stress management -- he understands we bring a body *and* mind to the session, and recognizes that both can be healed by movement.
