Team ACTIV

Saturday mornings just got better 👀
We’re starting an 8:30AM Adult Class the weekend after Easter

If you’ve been wanting to move, learn, and strengthen—this is for you

At ACTIV, we believe strength solves problems.
Come build it with us 💪

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Today we’re sharing ACTIV Physical Therapist Dan’s strength journey! 💪🏼

As a kid and throughout high school, Dan was always active - his life revolved around soccer year-round, and he also would snowboard each winter 🏂 He would also occasionally do workouts with friends at the school gym, or at home with P90X DVDs (who here is old enough to remember using DVDs? 😜 Let us know in the comments!)

After graduating high school and deciding not to play soccer in college, Dan was stuck figuring out how he wanted to stay active. It was hard to ignore what he was learning in his college courses - which was how important it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle! This led him to start going to the gym consistently, picking up his new hobby of weightlifting. The benefits were not only feeling stronger physically, but weightlifting helped keep him sane! It also helped him stay awake during the day - those 3-hour long PT school lectures with long bouts of sitting are not for the weak 😉… so hitting up the gym during classes was beneficial in more ways than one!

The last phase of Dan’s fitness journey developed over the past few years as he has been working as a physical therapist with ACTIV.

He has had his fair share of injuries - back pain, shoulder subluxation, knee pain from an old ACL injury. Rehabbing these injuries and learning how to manage them gave him much more insight into how his patients feel, and what guidance they need to recover and progress.

The one tool he has picked up over the past couple years to train and help patients is kettlebells. He started using them as he trained at ACTIV, and grew to appreciate their versatility. After 6 months of kettlebell training, he became certified as a Strong First SFG-1 Kettlebell Instructor 🎉

Dan isn’t sure where his fitness journey is headed in the future. But for now, he enjoys using a variety of tools including kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells, and bodyweight exercises to maintain his healthy lifestyle, stay active, and help his patients at ACTIV!

Comment below if you’ve seen Dan for PT and what injury he’s helped you rehab! 😃

Can you relate to Alexa’s strength journey? Keep reading until the end to see! 👇🏽

Last week, we shared ACTIV team member Ari’s strength journey, and how her interests changed from her college 🏫 days to her motherhood days👩‍🍼

This week, we are sharing about Alexa’s strength journey!

Alexa started weightlifting initially to improve her performance in track and field, in both high school and college.

In college, she focused on strength training as a preventative mechanism to injuries, after suffering from an injury in her first track and field season 🤕🩼

Post college, she fell in love with Olympic weightlifting and CrossFit 🏋🏻‍♀️ because it gave her the sense of competing that she still desired. Not to mention, she loved these sports because they looked cool, and made her feel strong! 😎

When she joined Team ACTIV, she shifted away from CrossFit and started more “functional” and performance-based strength training. This was so she could continue to demonstrate athletic movements for her ACTIV clients. And of course, to make sure that she “practiced what she preached” with the programming she provided and believed in for her clients.

After becoming a mother, she used strength training to lift and carry around her kids (along with carrying their many things – think strollers, car seats, etc!) without getting hurt.

The purpose and the way she strength trains may continue to change over time, but she intends to continue with strength training indefinitely, thinking of her future self so that she can continue to be strong, healthy and confident in her body well into her 70’s and 80’s! 💪🏼

Show Alexa some support in her journey by giving this post a 👍🏼 !