Queena has been coming to Best Day Fitness Studio for the past year. The staff at Best Day headed by Christopher Tolisano has donated an hour a week to helping Queena on her path to recovery. Morgan Paul, Brianna Castillo, and Marissa Tomilonus have all helped with Queena’s training sessions.
When Queena first started at Best Day, the sessions included working on the treatment table to begin strengthening the muscles of the back of Queena’s body. This was important as these are the muscles that tend to weaken the most when she is in a seated position. Unfortunately, due to the severity of her injury, Queena is bound to a wheelchair, so sitting is a common position for her. We as a team decided to start teaching her how to use the muscles of the back of her body. As her sessions progressed, we began teaching her how to stand. This process was challenging at first and usually she could only stand with assistance for a few minutes at a time. Since then she has progressed to pulling herself out of the chair and standing for upwards of 45 minutes.
Over the past 3 months, we have begun incorporating the gymnastics rings into her program. We help Queena get a grip on the rings over her wheel chair. Once she holds on we give her the cue to press up out of the chair into a standing position. We then gradually take our assistance away and have Queena balance on her own, while always staying at a safe distance, in case she needs help. The most recent session, Queena was completely independent of assistance for almost 30 seconds.
Standing and holding onto the rings is greatly improving her confidence, her balance, motor control and general strength. We take it for granite how easy it is to stand- but once you have no control of your muscles- this very standing position is very challenging and scary. You can tell Queena has built up trust in us and tries her hardest every time. This position is very challenging but also one of the best methods to improve total body balance and coordination. Her progress, once we got her on her feet, has been exponential. Every week, improvements are significant.
When working with Queena, you can tell that she can understand what is asked of her. She responds well to directions, even though her muscles are often very uncontrollable. Every time we see her, the response times seem to decrease. This is very promising as her brain continues to heal, the progress should continue to be noticeable.
In conclusion, we are very excited to help Queena. Her energy is something we look forward to every week. When she smiles, nothing else seems to matter. We continue to look forward the all the progress Queena is capable of.
Christopher Tolisano ATC, LAT
Best Day Fitness Studio is located in St.Petersburg Florida. The team at Best Day uses the B.E.S.T. Method which stands for Better Educated Strength Training. We base all of our programs around educated staff, educating clients about the benefits of strengthening the body’s weaknesses. We focus on correcting imbalances through natural movement re-education and posture correction. All staff at Best Day Fitness Studio have a bachelors degree in exercise science. We specialize in functional personal training, injury rehabilitation, stroke and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation.
