Nina Moore

It is a real honor and privilege to be invited into my clients’ lives.  The relationship between trainer and client is very special, because I get to participate in the part of a person’s life where there may be some level of vulnerability.

I am an athlete and have been on the other side of this relationship, so I know how important it is to be able to trust someone and know that the trainer has always got your back!  It is up to me to create an environment where my client can feel safe, comfortable and supported.

Nina Moore, a life-long athlete, has been a certified personal trainer for nearly two decades. In this capacity, she has worked with top actors, models, newscasters, professional athletes, and executives. A graduate of the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, Nina holds numerous certifications in various areas of specialization. She is a recognized fitness expert who has been profiled or published in leading media, including Shape, The Los Angeles Times, MSN, and Men’s Health.

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Nina Moore

My first responsibility is to keep Loolwa safe. While that may sound like a no-brainer, you’d be surprised by how many injuries or setbacks occur during the course of a person’s attempt to get back in shape!

Keeping Loolwa safe requires that I am fully engaged in what is happening, during every part of each exercise.

So the basic question is where do we start? Loolwa’s goal is to get back to the life she had before the accident – a life that was full of movement. All movement originates from the core. Yes, you guessed it: We are going to work on her core strength!    

We are focusing our effort on improving the body’s ability to control its own movement. This is the most important physical challenge for most people, and it is certainly more difficult for someone dealing with chronic pain.

Chronic pain typically makes a person want to stop movement, so retraining both the mind and body (”It is the mind that makes the body” – Sojourner Truth) to move beyond physical and emotional limitations will be an integral of our success.  

Initially, we are going to have Loolwa use her body weight, a stability ball, and some light tubing as the primary resistance for strength training. Her body will tell us when and how fast to progress.

As she gets stronger and more confident about her abilities, we will add light to moderate resistance in many different forms (medicine balls, dumbbells, kettlebells, suspension training and cables). The primary focus will continue to be on teaching her to be strong as she MOVES. She is training for life, and her life is perpetual motion!

Nina Moore, a life-long athlete, has been a certified personal trainer for nearly two decades. In this capacity, she has worked with top actors, models, newscasters, professional athletes, and executives. A graduate of the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, Nina holds numerous certifications in various areas of specialization. She is a recognized fitness expert who has been profiled or published in leading media, including Shape, The Los Angeles Times, MSN, and Men’s Health.

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Faithful Bianchi Strada

So for the Humpty Dumpty Challenge, my initial exercises of choice are biking, hiking, swimming, and eventually jogging. Today I went for a bike ride to and on the beach (don’t you wish you lived in California).

I thought I would have a hard time, because I haven’t been biking much recently. I’ve been focused on dancing and personal training with Nina.

But apparently the strength training is paying off, becuase I felt great! I mean, I could really feel the difference. I was able to bike up to about 15 miles before, but it was an effort on my body the whole way, even if not excessively so. But this time it actually felt easy!

Doncha wish you lived in Cali?

At six miles, I wanted to keep going. But the sun was setting, and it was getting dark; so I turned around. Good thing, because at 9 miles, I got winded, and by 10 miles, I was really working to make it back home. I clocked in at 12 miles on arrival.

I forgot to check my average speed and the time it took. I will look it up on my bike computer (yes, I even have a computer there!) and report back.

I’m also going to ask my webbie tonight if I can create some kind of formal log in system, through which I can clock my distance, time, and average speed for each of my exercises. That way I can track how I am progressing as I get stronger through my work with Nina.

Speaking of which, tomorrow is my personal training day! I’ll let you know how it goes. Usually she kicks my ass (ever so gently), and I end up in bed for several hours after the session!

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(Damn Wall Streaker)

I used to have one of those fancy shmancy vacuum cleaners that picks up everything including allergens. Cost several hundred dollars. While it worked very nicely for me when I bought it, before the onset of pain, it was basically useless after; because I couldn’t push the damn thing around.

So after being at the mercy of the occasional help who came to clean my home, I ditched it. Left it on the street for someone to claim. And I bought a Eureka vacumm cleaner – “The Boss Superlite.” It is in fact super light. And it even works! How cool is that.

I can’t remember how much it cost, but I think it was not more than about $50, which was easy(ish) on the wallet. I also like that there is no vacuum bag to change; rather, you just pop out the plastic contraption and dump the gook in the garbage. But the hands-down coolest thing about this vacuum is that I can push it around with one hand. Wicked.

The only drawbacks are these: I frequently have to pull out stuff from the rollers, which get clogged up pretty quickly. That of course involves bending, which my backey no likey.

Also there are no extensions, meaning, I can’t get at the edges of my carpet or in the corners behind furniture – where dust accumulates. I am using my mini hand-held vacuum for that, which sucks, because again, the whole bending thing. Ouch.

One final complaint: The upright lock is unstable. When I photographed the vacuum cleaner in my living room, I placed it on the floor and went to pick up my camera. As soon as I turned away, the whole top part of the vacuum fell backwards, leaving a black streak along my otherwise pristine white wall. Grrr.

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Ilene Rosenblum

I am so excited to announce that I have hired freelance writer/editor Ilene Rosenblum, to help me manage the Dancing with Pain® blog.

Ilene will be taking transcripts of the many interviews I have conducted with leading health care experts, turning them into blog posts. So stay tuned for frequent cutting-edge advice from leaders in the mind-body medicine field!

Ilene spent a couple of years writing for The Washington Post, the first mainstream periodical to take a chance on my writing chops. I’ve got a warm spot in my heart for the Post! Ilene also writes a nutrition column for The Jerusalem Post, and  her work has been published in The Daily Camera (Boulder, CO, Washington Jewish Week, and on Chabad.org.  A native of Albany, N.Y., Ilene now lives in Jerusalem, Israel and blogs about the transition to a Torah-centered life at Aliyah L’Torah.

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(My healthy dinner, earlier tonight)

I want to eat. As in, stuff random food into my mouth, until I am numbed out. There is a wise saying, “If you want to find out why you’re eating, put down the fork.”

So before picking up a fork, I asked myself that question. My answer was this: I want to soothe the discomfort and pain in my body.  I think instead, since I’m looking for comfort, I’ll take a hot shower and ice my thigh/groin area, which is feeling inflamed.

I was doing just fine today, before going to Trader Joe’s, to fill up my empty refrigerator. I always shop there when it’s about half an hour before closing time, because there are hardly any people in the aisles. In this branch, however, despite the lack of “traffic,” those who were in the store were careening around at breakneck speed.

(Careening employees make me crazy)

Oh yeah, and they were primarily the employees. So I was dodging carts of produce, pairs of customer service representatives, and the random shoppers in-between the uniformed people.

It doesn’t take much to activate my pain places – just a little twist here or there. There is so much going in my body, and my nerves are so jacked up, that I need to move very precisely. Otherwise, things get whacked out of place, and I end up in pain.

I feel as if I’m on the cusp of becoming an obnoxious traffic controller everywhere I go. Heck, I might as well buy one of those cute little orange whistles and start blowing it when people come at me. I tried out the role a little bit this evening, actually. I pulled the cart over to get some milk, and this guy behind started coming at me, as if I were not standing there. I put my hand out in a “stop” gesture. He did.

(Trader Joe's Booty)

The thing is, I have been in avoidance mode, because I cannot risk someone slamming into me. I cannot risk that someone will not respect or understand what I’m trying to communicate, while I am standing around trying to control his behavior.

If someone slams into me, I will feel the impact for days, weeks, or months after. The pain I feel tonight is nothing like what I would have felt if someone actually did make physical contact. Even a stupid bump leaves me in pain.

It’s a conundrum. At least that word is cool.

My question is, why is everyone rushing around like such crazy maniacs? Where is everyone going that they can’t be bothered to pause for, I don’t know, five seconds, to give someone the courtesy and space we each deserve? Don’t even get me started on the driving I see every day. It’s shameful. I mean, seriously, it’s a blatant disregard for human life. How did we end up here as a society?

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Nina carefully monitored my pain levels, making adjustments here and there – like asking me to slow down my gait. Still, I couldn’t pull off more than four minutes; because while the pain went away for a bit, it came back.

I had a lot of feelings that day:

1. Fear and Anxiety

I have been so emotionally traumatized (never mind physically injured) by health care practitioners, that I’m now fairly terrified to report when I have had a setback. Will I be judged? Will there be eye-rolling or snickering? A joke or two about my bad luck or bad karma? Body language indicating that I’m hopeless or ridiculous?

When I told Nina, however, she was matter-of-fact and caring. “I can tell you’ve been in pain,” she responded. “You can see it in your eyes. They’re not clear and sparkly and dancy like they were last week.”

I wanted to cry.

This is how it should be. This is what all health care practitioners should be like, especially those working with people in chronic pain. I have so many “war stories” to report from the field, where I was left wondering why the practitioners were doing work in health care in the first place, given their ignorance or callousness about the reality of people dealing with health conditions.

Nina actually gave a fuck. Actually noticed and felt compassion for the way the pain had impacted me. That’s just wicked cool.

2. Shame and frustration, mixed in with a little more anxiety.

I had soared so far so fast, but there I was again — pain here, pain there, limiting the ways I could do exercises, if at all. I was back to the yellow band and back to just a few repetitions of each exercise. Damn.

Would I be able to pull off this Humpty Dumpty Challenge, I wondered. Had I set myself up for failure? I partially felt like a failure that day, seeing how far back I’d fallen. And I had more fear about whether Nina might react, might get frustrated herself, then act out on me from that place of frustration.

I was poignantly aware that my fears weren’t about Nina. They were residue from the emotionally abusive health care practitioners who’d come before her. As I said to Nina when we had dinner a few nights ago, I am part soaring eagle and part abused puppy dog. The puppy dog part is what was done to me. The eagle part is what I’m doing with what was done to me.

It takes time to build up trust, especially when we’re putting ourselves in the vulnerable situation of patient or client, and especially especially when that setup has been traumatic to us in the past. It’s akin to leaving an abusive relationship, figuring out the elements that make for a healthy relationship, and moving forward in that new relationship:

We have to let go of the past and take a leap of faith, if the new relationship is even going to stand a chance. And yet, we need to value our wisdom and be aware of the possible pitfalls, so that we can protect ourselves. In addition, even if the new relationship is just as healthy as can possibly be, the emotional residue will take time to work itself out. We need to experience different outcomes to the same scenarios, before being able to internalize and trust, oh yeah, this person is safe.

Which leads to the really cool, profoundly sacred thing about being a health care practitioner: You have the power to change someone’s life – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. How’s that for power. Use it responsibly. Use it lovingly. Use it wisely.

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(Oh my! A list!)

Like it or not, you as a practitioner are in the position to harm your clients or facilitate their healing. Following are ten steps to using your power for good — creating a safe practice and, as such, rewriting the script of previous health care trauma: 

1. Recognize that the barrel of our health care system is chock full of rotten apples.
2. Understand that no matter how empowered, assertive, communicative, and devoted to healing an individual may be, she still may have been victimized by poor health care treatment.
3. Know that being victimized does not mean being a victim.
4. Have compassion for the way your client’s life may have been turned upside down, on every level, as a result of poor health care in the past.
5. Be aware that the person you’re working with may have suffered physical and emotional trauma at the hands of former practitioners she once trusted.
6. Honor the courage, strength, tenacity, faith, and perseverance it may have taken for your client to get to you.
7. Respect the vulnerability and anxiety your client may feel in taking the leap of faith to work with you.
8. Validate that it may take a while for your client to solidly trust her faith in you, no matter how safe and gentle you are.
9. Embrace the powerful opportunity to rewrite the script for your client – as such helping her heal not only physically, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  
10. Offer your client authentic TLC (tender loving care), knowing that love is the most primary and powerful healing balm you can provide.

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In that short amount of time, I had doubled my reps and gone from the yellow (easiest) to green (next hardest) band, and everything was just easy and flowing, without pain interfering.

After the session, I not only felt strong and powerful, and I not only had sudden amnesia about what it feels like to be in pain, but I also felt the sense/vibration of parts of my personality that had been snowed under by pain, for over a decade.

Then on Friday, October 30, two people jammed past me in a narrow passageway at Office Depot, and whamo! I was in setback mode, with pain jacked up all over the damn place. I did really well responding to it – blogging to get the angries out, then accepting the reality and laying low for a couple of days – resting, sleeping, icing, and dancing.

On Sunday, Nov 2, Iate at night, I got wicked nerve pain in my left thigh; and I was suddenly hobbling, hanging on to dressers, tables, and other random furniture just to get to the bathroom. While I did dance it out, I had no idea if I would be able to walk the next day – meaning, I didn’t know if I could even show up to my personal training session.

Even if I were to park in the handicapped space at my gym, I still would have to walk a long stretch to get to the gym entrance, then another long stretch to get to the elevator. Because accessibility kind of overlooks people who are somewhere between totally able-bodied and wheelchair-bound. (Not to mention there’s a still a long way to go to make life accessible to people in wheelchairs.)

Fortunately, I woke up on Monday able to walk. I took the elevator, however, instead of the stairs, because I still hadn’t totally recovered from the setback.

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(Me and Miriam)

Even when my pain has been jacked up, I have still, somehow, been able to pick up Angelikah and Miriam, my DBAs — Daughters by Association, ie, my best friend’s children. 

(Me, Angelikah, and Miriam)

Playing with them has the magical power of dance: The love and goofiness I feel with them override the pain. A small scale twist, perhaps, on moms getting an adrenaline rush and picking up cars to get their kids out.

I’m nonetheless jazzed I’m strengthening my core, because among other reasons, I’ll be able to keep being Angelikah’s personal monkey bar, even as she turns six, seven, eight — because as she gets heavier, so will I get stronger.

(My BFF and our girls)

Meanwhile, I’m able to fly Miriam all over the place, becuase as a two year old, she’s super light. And on my stronger days, I can respond to Angelica’s, “Me too! Me too!” pleas with the same bird-in-flight play.

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