Alia began teaching yoga in 2015, but quickly became frustrated with the limitations of a single discipline. It was clear that there was infinite value in helping people become stronger and more mobile beyond the purpose of performing yoga poses, but to improve function in daily life. She developed a passion for helping make inaccessible movements more accessible, especially for those left in the margins of the fitness industry – older adults, people with pain, and the average not-so-flexible-jane and joe. Alia uses a one-on-one style approach that allows her to build relationships with individuals and work with various movement disciplines to help people move, feel, and therefore live better. She operates from a belief system that the body is inherently strong and infinitely adaptable.
Working with Pain
Growing up, Alia witnessed loved ones suffer from chronic pain and the often dismissive treatment they received from medical professionals. This inspired her to support people with pain through empathy, encouragement, and scientific understanding. The evolving science of pain has reshaped her approach to her own pains and views on aging, fueling her belief in its potential to address the chronic pain epidemic. Alia is dedicated to contributing to this positive change and invites others to join her.
Philosophy
Alia’s philosophy is shaped by three guiding principles imparted by her mentors: treating each client as a whole person, listening attentively, and recognizing the body’s infinite adaptability.
If you’d like to learn more about Alia, or would like to work with her. Please follow the links below.
MOB Membership Website: CLICK HERE
To join Alia’s free webinar “The Truth About Osteoarthritis”: CLICK HERE
Visit Alia’s website: www.aliabisat.com
Follow the MOB’s Instagram: @themobmembership
Episode Summary
In this episode of the Practice Human podcast, Caitlin interviews Alia Bisat, a yoga teacher turned functional movement and strength coach. Alia discusses her transition from teaching yoga to incorporating strength and mobility training, driven by her own experiences with physical limitations and a desire to help people improve daily function. They also delve into the importance of understanding pain science and addressing the negative experiences people have with medical professionals, highlighting the significance of functional training for various populations, including older adults.
What’s covered in this episode?
- Why is strength training important for maintaining functional independence as people age?
- How can an understanding of pain science influence your approach to managing your own chronic pain or injury?
- How does your personal experience and history of pain/injury factor into finding the right coach or training format to meet your goals?
- How can strength and mobility training impact your physical capacity, and help lessen the impact of injuries?
- What is over-medicalization and how does it impact peoples’ perception of their pain?
Episode Transcript
Caitlin: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Practice Human podcast. I’m your host, Caitlin Casella. Before we get into my interview with Alia Bisat, I wanted to give an update on some exciting events we have coming up here in person in New York City at Practice Human. That is my clinical space, my, uh, practice space, my studio.
Uh, really delighted to be rolling out some great educational programming. I’m summer and fall. My colleague Elizabeth Wipf will be teaching a six week training course called Just Train. Uh, it’s a kind of an offshoot of Virtue’s Strength Academy. It is a short one hour class that happens for just six weeks through July and into August.
It’s for people who have already been training with Elizabeth or already doing some strength training. So I’d say it’s a little bit more of an intermediate group. If you are new to working with Elizabeth and interested in joining her Just Train on, it’s on Wednesday afternoons here in person. You can reach out to us at hello at Practice Human or you can go to her website ElizabethWhip.
com to find more information. And then I’m super excited to be hosting two big weekend long continuing ed courses. Uh, the first one coming up is July 13th and 14th with Greg Lehmann. If you missed my last podcast episode, I interviewed Greg and we talked a little bit about his course, Reconciling Biomechanics with Pain Science.
If you are a clinician, a strength and conditioning coach, a therapist of any kind that works with the body, this is really a not to miss course. It will change and shake up your mindset on how you view pathology, how you view potential disease or problems in the body and give you a much more optimistic place to move forward with your clients or with your patients.
So, uh, if you’re not signed up already, this one is filling up. This is just coming up in July and you can find all of these events on the practice human website. practicehuman.com slash events. Definitely check out Greg Lehman’s course in July. And then we have another course that is for physical therapy, clinicians, chiropractors, strength and conditioning coaches, body workers, really, uh, anyone who, again, anyone who works with the human body.
Ben Cormack will be here September 28th and 29th teaching Therapeutic Movement and Exercise Back Pain and Beyond. And Ben has been, uh, really a mentor for me in the way that I approach back pain, chronic and non specific low back pain, and the ways that I work with ruling out other conditions of the lower spine.
And I highly recommend his course. It’s a really in depth evidence based look at back pain and how it can be treated through movement and exercise. So I’m excited to have Ben here and Ben will be coming up soon in a podcast episode. So watch out for that. so those are like big announcements here in person at Practice Human.
And in my interview today, I’m talking with my colleague, Alia Bisat. And Alia created an online membership called The Mob. I teach classes for The Mob on Mondays. I teach a strength class and a class that we call TLC Toolkit, which is some tools from the PT clinic just for moving and feeling a little better, improving mobility, desensitizing, achy or painful areas of the body.
And I have to say through all of the time before and during the pandemic, as I’ve been teaching online. It’s been a struggle at times to find a format that I feel serves the people at home online really well from a learning perspective. And Alia just nailed it with the mob membership. All of the classes in the mob are capped at six people or most of them.
There are a few that are a little bit larger groups. but for the most part capped at six people exclusively live and with cameras on and with communication back and forth. So that as a coach for the mob, I can have a really personalized interaction with all of the students in the class and get to know them better.
their movement, get to know their practice, get to know all of them personally, really, really well so that I can serve them better as a coach. And I’m honored to be working with such an incredible group of coaches in the mob membership. And I just love the small group live. 30 minute short class format that you’ll find there.
It’s been a joy to teach in that space. And I highly recommend it. If you are someone who’s looking for something that is exclusively live with a much more intimate, personalized touch and a lot of guidance, if you’re looking to get strong, work on just being there. basic life skills of function. And if you’re somebody who’s over the ages of around 40 or 50, one of the things that Alia and I discuss in our interview is how there’s really a gap in the, uh, fitness world, the fitness market for serving some folks that are a little bit older, early, need a little bit more specialized or personalized attention.
After listening to this episode, if you want to learn a little bit more from Alia, She’s offering a free 60 minute webinar about osteoarthritis. As many of you know, you’ve heard me talk about osteoarthritis a lot. It is a subject near and dear to my heart. She is hosting a free webinar on Thursday, May 30th.
So it’s coming up soon. You can register through her bio link. I’ll put a link in the show notes, also put a link in our practice human bio link on Instagram. And it’s going to review some of the misconceptions about osteoarthritis. It will present some of the well researched and effective treatments and some key elements of the physiology of pain, some pain science, and then some effective strategies for you to manage your physical function with osteoarthritis.
So,I know she’s going to have a lot of great, Empowering hope hope building type of information there So if you’re a person with osteoarthritis or if you experience other joint pain or if you know anyone who could benefit from this It’s a free hour long webinar with her on Thursday, May 30th again We’ll link this up in the show notes so you can find it through my Instagram bio and all yes Instagram bio and then finally all yeah has a special offer for those of you who might be interested in joining the mob membership You If you do a one on one consult with her, if you’re interested in joining the membership, and this is just standard, she does a one on one consult with anyone who might be coming in to join us.
If you mention the Practice Human Podcast episode and you do end up getting a membership, she’ll throw in two additional 45 minute one on one sessions with Alia. And she is just, you’ll see, if you listen to this interview, she’s a tremendous coach. She is really an empowering person in terms of helping people later in life, really take on more robust activity, more robust exercise and build up a reserve of tolerance for heavier workloads, heavier exercise, so that we can really keep doing all the things we want to do to stay independent. In our lives and I know you all listening know that that’s really important to me So I I love all his work it was really great to have her on the podcast and just hear her take on some of the The issues here that we discuss and I want to thank alia for sharing everything She shares with all of you here listening on the podcast and the students in the mom membership They’re they’re just really lucky to have this space So if you have any questions for me, you can always reach out to us at hello At practice human.
com we Respond to all of your emails and I hope you enjoy my interview with Alia.
I am really excited today to have on the podcast, my friend, Alia Bisat. Alia began teaching yoga in 2015 and quickly became frustrated with the limitations of a single discipline. Uh, it was clear that there was infinite value in helping people become stronger and more mobile beyond the purpose of performing yoga poses, but to improve function in daily life, she developed a passion for helping make that happen.
inaccessible movements are more accessible, especially for those left in the margins of the fitness industry, namely older adults, people, people with pain and the average, not so, not so flexible Jane and Joe, uh, Alia uses a one on one style that allows her to build relationships with individuals. and works with various movement disciplines to help people move, feel, and therefore live better.
She operates from a belief system that the body is inherently strong and infinitely adaptable, and so do I. I love that belief system, and I’m really excited to have you here, Alia.
Alia: I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me
Caitlin: Yeah, and we met probably around that time. I would say like sometime between 2015 2016 ish.
I would think Uh as yoga teachers in new york city and I believe we met through a group of teachers that came together for some social gatherings and Mutual support because we were all going through a bit of a reckoning with yoga yoga asana teaching yoga What What to call ourselves when we were straying away from something that, or into something that didn’t quite feel like teaching yoga anymore.
I think that’s the context in which I got to know you.
Alia: Yeah, I think so. It was, you know, looking back on it,I sort of forgot about that group until starting to work with you and thinking about when we met and it was a really, really awesome group to have at the time when all of us were having certain doubts and, and kind of confusion about how to.
How to define our boundaries around what is yoga and what is not. So yeah, that was a cool experience at the time.
Caitlin: Yeah. And it was helpful for me and for sure to, to talk with people who are going through some of those same things, cause it can feel super isolating, especially in a, you know, in something that is your career and what you love and kind of.
An identity, I think, for yoga teachers in a way that can feel scary to step outside of that and move into something else. Yeah. And you moved into a form of strength training really, or training for life, I would say that, kind of champions functional activity in daily life. Would you agree with that in terms of your focus right now and what you’re doing?
Alia: Yes, for sure. Functionality is. The pillar, the main, the main focus of any of the work that I offer now.
Caitlin: Yeah, and I was wondering if you could share a little bit about how that transition came about or what that felt like for you, going from teaching primarily yoga asana to the type of coaching and training that you’re doing today.
Alia: Yeah, so the transition from yoga was really a reflection. Of what was going on in my body. I have never been a particularly flexible mobile person. Uh, I mean, everything is relative, but if you talk about bodies who are teaching yoga, I was never one of those dancers or kind of people who just were yoga really came naturally to them.
So I actually did my yoga training because. I had reached a plateau in yoga and I wasn’t getting anywhere and I thought if I did my training I would just Be able to lift my legs over my head and I realized quickly that that was not the case I the yoga training didn’t really offer me that And but I enjoyed teaching and I started teaching and getting into getting into breaking down poses with people But what really transformed my body and my ability to perform the poses was strength and mobility It totally changed what I was able to do in the classes and in my teaching And so I started incorporating the strength and mobility in my yoga classes in addition to Breaking down the poses in such a way that I needed to break them down for myself to be able to learn them I really needed to feel the different component parts of each pose In my body and understand it in my body and how to work with it within my body, you know, like Putting my foot in a different position or really understanding how the pelvis moves from side to side to be able to then put that into a more complicated pose.
And so my teaching reflected both of those things, the breakdown of the poses and in turn, some strength and mobility practices and people really responded to it. And yeah, I would say that was the biggest, those were the two biggest elements in the transition, which of course was very slow, you know, happened over time.
Caitlin: Yeah, and I think,I remember part of that for both of us was that we had that shared weekend together where we took the Functional Range Conditioning Mobility Specialist Weekend and the FRC and I think for me that, that started to connect a lot of dots in terms of ways that I can introduce different kinds of stimulus, physical stimulus to the body within a yoga asana type of setting because it slots in so well with body weight practice, something that you can do with minimal equipment or that you can do really easily with yoga props in a yoga classroom environment.
So I felt like we had a little bit of shared transition just in that modality at one point, bringing some of that into the yoga classroom.
Alia: I loved that training. And it also, it also created the transition between, okay, getting good at yoga. And getting good at life and it was those trainings and that change in my body where I was like What am I actually teaching here?
What is the point of this and this kind of goes into my frustration with yoga at the time Like what’s the point of getting better at warrior two? What’s the point of getting better at bird of paradise? What am I actually trying to get someone to do? I’m trying to get them stronger in their legs. I’m trying to get them more mobile in their hips.
I’m trying to get their balance to be better. So then Why am I limited to those positions, those shapes that were chosen randomly by someone hundreds of years ago? Like, maybe I can offer a little bit more than that. And so, yeah, at some point my yoga, as yours did too, you know, Started to not really look like yoga anymore and it’s like well, okay, maybe it’s time to to move on
Caitlin: Yeah, what did your transition into strength training look like?
Was that something that you started training? On your own or did you work with a coach? Did you work with a trainer? How did you move into that?
Alia: Yeah, in 20, it was either 2015 or 2016. I can’t remember. I think it’s 2016. My now husband, at the time we had started dating, first started dating, he convinced me to start working with a personal trainer.
I had only ever done group class stuff and i’ve always been a runner, but i’ve not always strength trained, but I dabbled in group class strength stuff in the past, but he introduced me to his personal trainer and she’s still a good friend of mine. And that was awesome. It was just awesome.
I mean, it was the first time that I squatted and deadlift and I played with handstands. AndIt was super empowering and immediately felt a difference in my yoga practice. And yeah, that was the beginning of it.
Caitlin: Cool. Yeah. I get questions a lot from people who are yoga teachers and interested in strength training or interested in bringing.
More strength training to their clients. They’re always asking how do you get started with that? And my answer is always well like start strength training like you yeah doing it, right? And then you get all you really kind of get all that because you already know how to teach You know as a yoga teacher.
We already have this set of tools from teaching and seeing People moving and giving verbal cues and coaching people through their bodies, talking people through their bodies and through movement. And I think that it’s just for me anyway, too, it was just like such a potent experience to, and kind of an aha moment to start strength training myself and be like, Oh, okay, this is different.
And there’s a different set of words and tools and positions and movements that come with it, but teaching is teaching.
Alia: Yeah. Teaching is teaching. Yes, for sure. And, but I, but I also would, will always, I will always. Push people anybody of any doing anything is to get a coach even for just a couple of sessions And I understand that’s not accessible for a lot of people, but if it is accessible anytime you’re doing something new hire somebody who knows who knows more than you for just one or two sessions and you will just You’ll at least Know where to go from there and allow your journey to take a particular direction where you have specific questions to ask and specific threads to follow.
Caitlin: Yeah, that’s really huge. I think it’s important that people who offer one-on-one sessions also are consumers of one-on-one sessions too. You know, like because you learn so much from learning about how another person conducts A one-on-one session. completely. I do agree. Right? Completely agree.
Completely agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good point.I want to delve into the area of pain and pain science a little bit because you Have studied quite a lot in pain science, uh on this in this transition on this journey And one thing that you shared on your website that really stood out to me Is you said that you grew up witnessing loved ones suffer from chronic pain And more than the pain itself most debilitating was the way they were treated by the, by medical professionals or by the medical community.
I’d love for you to share a little bit more about that.
Alia: Yeah. You know, my mom has suffered from chronic pain for as long as I can remember, a variety of, a variety of pain experiences. I just grew up with hearing her talk about going to doctors, and not just, it’s not just doctors, it’s been massage therapists, it could have been osteopaths, it could have been chiropractors, just across the board, professionals that she was going to for help, and her coming back with stories of, you Whether it was being talked down to, or whether it was being doubted, or whether it was just not being taken seriously, or told that it was all in her head, I mean, and then I think having that experience growing up has primed me to have my ear open to those stories without really realizing it, and then when I started my Through yoga, you know, having people come talk to you about injuries after class, but then starting working with one on one and working with people who have had injuries and hearing their stories about the way that they’ve been treated by physical therapists or, you know, doctors anywhere across the board.
It’s just so disheartening how people have They’re regularly not heard and treated as whole people. And I think I’ve always been sensitive to that without even consciously realizing my sensitivity to it. And so there was a point, I have no idea, when I first watched Laura Mur Moley, so Laura Mur Moley is like one of the head science, paint science researchers in the world, and he.
Has his TED talk that’s quite old now. I think 10 minutes long I have no idea how I came across it But I remember when I came across it where he breaks down the biopsychosocial model of pain I kind of lit up and I was like, oh my god. I can’t believe This is actually how pain works that no one knows about this, even though it’s been in the research for 20 plus years, right?
And no one’s talking about this. And then you delve in and you realize that medical schools aren’t teaching this, that you know, the doctors that have been in practice for 20, 30 years have not kept up with the research. And this is. This is life changing stuff. And yeah,I just feel very sensitive to listening to people talk about their pain, validating their pain, and then understanding that we have so many options for how to help them either come out of pain or at least increase their functionality within the pain that they have.
Caitlin: Yeah. For sure. I mean, I’ve definitely in my clinical practice encountered a lot of patients who come to me after having been put through just such a runaround between specialists and with diagnosis and get to a point where they have this It’s really kind of fear induced belief that whatever’s going on is medically serious because it has been assessed and talked about by medical professions or medical professionals in all kinds of contexts.
And like what are the terms that gets used from one of my mentors that I’ve studied uh, low back pain with, Ben Cormack, is he uses the term over medicalization and we talk about how people think that they’re, issues, their, their symptoms, their concerns are medically serious when they’re not necessarily like a serious medical condition.
I think one of the things he says is it’s seriously painful, but it’s not medically serious. I think that description is really helpful. And, yeah, and I think, I think people get a lot of conflicting information. When they start to be seen by a lot of different professionals kind of seeking a diagnosis, you know, when, when an actual diagnosis might not be the most helpful thing, just having somebody really listen to them and learn about their lifestyle and what they’re struggling with.
It might be the most helpful thing. Most important thing for them.
Alia: Yeah. Well, man, there’s so much wrapped up into it. I mean, yes, totally over medicalized, but then how do you tell somebody that what they’re going through and what they’re feeling isn’t actually a medical problem, right? There’s so many belief systems tied up into what they’re seeing, what they’re hearing from an authority figure, what they’re seeing on their MRI screen and what they, what they.
Have been taught to believe MRI screenings are And there’s just a lot to break down there. So I mean, yes, and I think the number one I think if there’s any Myth to break that would at least start the cascade of unraveling what pain is and how it works in the body It’s this idea that which of course you’ve talked so much about is that damage does not equal pain and pain does not equal damage You know, it’s not a physical tissue damage and so You But that by itself can take months or years to work with somebody about changing their belief system about it.
But yes, totally leading to the over medicalization of things.
Caitlin: Yeah, for
Alia: sure.
Caitlin: And then I think it really feeds into the ways we work with people in terms of movement and exercise. Because if someone’s coming from a place of, of believing that, you know, I don’t know if I should do this because I’m going to make it worse or if I move in such a way, I’m causing more harm.
Usually someone kind of perceives that as more mechanical damage or something. It can be a really tough uphill battle as a coach who deals with movement and exercise to get that person moving and exercising in a confident way. In a way that’s going to build them up and make them feel better and function better and be more resilient, but it’s it.
I find it to be kind of tricky. Kind of a little bit of a, uh, sticky spot, right, to get past that.
Alia: Yes, completely. And if you, I mean,I love working with, with the older population, which we’ll talk about, but they, one of the barriers to movement and exercise for people who are older is that they have more experiences under their belt of these over medicalization experiences.
situations. They have had the chance, literally, they’ve lived more years, so they’ve had the chance for more energy. They’ve had more experiences at hospitals and with doctors. They’ve had more images done over the course of the years. And so they literally have racked up experiences under their belt, which just affirms all of the things they’ve been told in the past.
So it’s just a beautiful bigger belief system, there’s more barriers to break down with that population, which is what I find so rewarding to, to work with that population specific. So, yeah.
Caitlin: Right, right. Well, and there’s also just this societal belief that age and age alone means your body’s breaking down, which is not necessarily the case.
Yes, there are changes in our tissue structures. There are like cartilage changes and things like that that happen, but it doesn’t mean that your body’s just broken down. and it’s just totally falling apart once you turn the corner from like 40, 50 or I’ve even, I mean, I’ve even worked with young patients with chronic low back pain in their late twenties and thirties who think that just because they’re 30, their back is going to hurt for the rest of their life, you know, when actually it’s quite common for men in their thirties to have low back pain, more common than people actually much later decades to have low back pain.
So it’s, some of those things are just like such pervasive sort of myths in the society that. Freak people out about, about the changes that they feel in their bodies.
Alia: Totally, totally. It is not inevitable.
Caitlin: So that’s a perfect segue into our next topic. And one that I’m really excited to discuss with you.
And this is the fact that you’re. target audience, and I’ll just mention right now for those listening, Alia has created this fantastic online membership called The Mob, and I teach a little bit, teach a couple of classes weekly in the membership, and it focuses on small group training with lots of individualized feedback.
For people aged 50 plus I would love to hear about why you created this And why it is specifically for? Ages 50 and up.
Alia: Yeah, the 50 and up thing is a little arbitrary. I had to pick a number It could have been 55. It could have been 65. I ended up picking 50 just To kind of pick a number honestly, I wanted to pick I wanted to pick something that was below the medicare age I think it’s 65 but above There’s something about people in their 40s where they’re still They’re still able to like or they tend to again making big general age generalizations They tend to just like jump back into fitness classes pretty easily 50s do that too But anyway, I just had to pick a number but I created this because I felt like I was so the real transition here was that I I was seeing one of most of my work is one on one clients and I was seeing a lot of people who are 50 and up and They usually came to me because they had some sort of chronic pain issue or mobility issue that kept them from being able to be As functional as they wanted to be in their daily lives and after working with them for several months or several years They were in great shape and I was Honestly, kind of running out of room in my schedule to see other people that had acute pain issues.
And so I wanted to create something that embodied all of the principles that I use in my teaching and my work with people, but in group form too literally. Honestly, offload my schedule, but know that I was sending them to a place or putting them in a group where they were going to be taken care of and move within the boundaries of the ethos and the principles that I really strongly believe in about pain and movement and aging and resiliency.
So. There really isn’t anything like that, uh, that I can find that is specifically for this age group that is online, that is small, like, the classes are small, the teachers, like you, whom I love, are very highly qualified, so. It’s pretty specific I think.
Caitlin: Yeah, and I think it’s specific too in that it is online, it’s small, and it’s live.
That all the instruction is delivered live to people who we can see and speak to in the moment and see respond to our verbal cues and yeah and for me that’s super rewarding. I meanI might have mentioned this to you when I came on to start teaching . I can’t just teach to a camera in an empty room.
I don’t feel like I’m terrible. I’m like, I’m not teaching anyone. I’m not teaching. This isn’t teaching. I have to be like teaching a person in front of me who is who I can respond to because it’s, it’s a give and take. It’s a back and forth. Like that’s teaching to me. so I also love the live component of it.
It’s really
Alia: Actually yeah, that’s a huge component. Uh, it’s live. We Record that all the classes have recordings, but the recordings are available to some people who might have missed the class But the class is taught to the people who are showing up And the beauty of it. I mean I’ve talked to some people who are potentially interested in joining and they’re like Oh online classes.
I can’t, I just can’t get into it. You know, i’m so Zoomed out from the beginning of the pandemic and I’m like, these are really different classes in the way I mean when I I taught a few Classes at the beginning of the pandemic yoga classes and you know You have 20 people in the class and half of them have their video off And you can’t really see everybody on the screen because there’s 20 boxes and so There’s you know, no more than six or seven people on the screen and they are live and their videos are on and you are Really interacting with those people which is obviously what like you said, that’s what real teaching is.
Caitlin: Yeah Yeah, and it is truly unique to any way that I’ve taught online I have to say and and part of it too I think that makes it work really well is when there’s only six or seven people max in there. They know each other So they’re not strangers on Zoom and so that creates a little bit of a social atmosphere and some comfort in having video on.
I can totally understand people keeping their video off in a, like a class of 30 people on Zoom.
Alia: For
Caitlin: sure. For sure. But in this context, it’s like everybody knows each other’s name and. And there is some social aspect to it and, and yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s really nice. It’s really nice with that size of a group online
Alia: live.
Caitlin: And the classes are short.
Alia: Classes are short. Classes are only 30 minutes and it’s kind of amazing how all of us, uh, have packed so much into 30 minutes without it feeling, none of the classes feel, you know, like super fast or overdone, but it’s, it’s accessible. Hour long classes, I think we all figured out during the pandemic that they’re just less accessible for people.
Caitlin: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think all of those format things that we just talked about really speak to how this is unique and breaking down some barriers in the fitness industry for folks 50 and over. I’d like for you to talk a little bit more in depth about this gap. That you see in the fitness industry and how the work with the mob is kind of filling that gap or your work that you’ve done with people over the last several years, one on one, like, what are you giving them that they can’t really get anywhere else in terms of the actual coaching and physical practice?
Alia: Some of the barriers are the same to anybody else in terms of starting exercise, which is being self conscious or not knowing the fundamentals of strength training, not knowing how to start. There’s financial barriers, but in particular for this age group, which is where I think the industry is lacking is addressing in my mind, kind of two or three things.
One being, What I think is the biggest component is the injury component. There’s fear of injury that I think is more prevalent with an older age group than a younger age group. They either have something that already hurts. They have an injury and they don’t want to make it worse, or they don’t have an injury, but they don’t want it.
You know, they’re thinking about it. They’re thinking about their bodies a little bit more now that they’re aging or they had an injury. They went to PT. They had to deal with that whole thing and they don’t want it to come back. They’ve had an experience with another personal trainer who maybe wasn’t very qualified or whatever they had an injury and they felt like they weren’t paid attention to and so There’s the injury aspect of it.
There’s the lack of education. They’re just not. The education is just not as available for this age group in terms of why strength training is so important in general. But why for this age group and the way that this age group in particular loses muscle at a faster rate. People don’t know that, as I mentioned before, that, you know, falls are not inevitable, you know, losing muscle mass is not inevitable, all of those things.
Type 2 fibers, loss of your type 2 fibers, that’s not inevitable. There are things we can do about that. and then there’s, of course, the whole ageism conversation in our society. And like I mentioned, too, the greater number of experiences under their belt of all of these things just because they lived more years Make this a little bit more difficult and you’ve got classes like so in the industry things like orange theory or f45 Or barry’s boot camp.
It’s not they’re geared towards younger people But it’s really their classes are really fast and they’re not individualized And whether you’re young or old, if you’re starting something and you’re nervous about it, you don’t want to go to a class where things are that fast paced and you don’t want to go to a class where you don’t feel like you’re being paid attention to.
so I think that’s a really big one. Having classes that are small, where you have someone very qualified at the, in the room that you can ask questions to, and you don’t feel nervous about asking those questions. Being underestimated is a big thing. Kind of a general gap in the industry, the industry does not, I think the one of the, I’m going to give this example of a client of mine, actually, I think she was 75 at the time that she fell.
She was, she was, ice skating actually. She fell and she broke her wrist and there was some complication in the wrist so that she was gonna have to either get a surgery or she was just gonna have to put it in a cast and wait it out and they didn’t even give her the option of the surgery because of her age and the surgery was going to be more likely to get her to be back to her functionality using her wrist.
That was gonna be the better option for her. They didn’t even give her that option. They gave her the option of putting her in a cast, and she was like, she’s a doctor. She was like, you know, I don’t know. She got a second opinion, and the second opinion said, no, you really want surgery if you plan on using your wrist heavily.
And like, the fact that she wasn’t even given that option in the beginning just shows the way that this population is treated and underestimated in general. And that by itself to me is a huge, a huge gap in the industry. Uh, I have another client too, who they were going to put them in for some tendinitis.
They were going to put him in a boot for six weeks. He’s 79. You put someone in a boot for six weeks at 79 for a level three out of 10 pain, the cascade of issues you’re going to have for that is huge. And that again, it’s just underestimating people just because of their age, their capacity and their interest in being functional in life for another 10, 15 years.
They’re just very dismissed. AndIt’s a huge issue.
Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think even within kind of our, our profession of coaching, strength coaching, training, things like that, there’s a, a lot of people out there who, who are actually scared to offer more robust exercise to older adults, you know, like people want to be challenged and want to be pushed and they want to see progress.
And you have to work at, you know, I mean, you understand exercise science, like, right? There has to be a certain level of intensity to send a strong enough signal to drive adaptation. And I mean, it’s rampant in the PT world too. I mean, the kind of joke is like, Oh, yellow TheraBand PT, which I will say like, there is a time and a place for yellow.
It’s the kind of thing that’s like, you just want to bubble wrap people to keep them safe when really it’s giving them exposure. To things that promote adaptation is what’s really going to keep them safe, right?
Alia: Right. Even, so the CDC has a, the CDC talks about, they have like this, you know, PDF about falling and falls prevention.
So the good news is the CDC says falling is not inevitable, which I love. They say it doesn’t have to be this way. And one of the things they talk about, they like lists, okay, you know, talk to your doctor about the types of medications you’re taking, but then they also say exercise. And one of their examples for exercise for better balance and strength.
Tai Chi. That’s the only example they give. And I’m like, okay. There’s nothing wrong with tai chi. Tai chi can absolutely improve people’s balance and stability But if we’re talking about robust bones and muscular strength and the ability that we’re talking about resilience capacity So if you do fall that you don’t break a bone tai chi is not gonna cut it and that’s what they list You know, so yeah even at that level where we’re not We’re not giving the right advice about, about the importance of intense strength training.
Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. And the things, and I think it’s, it’s quite well supported in the research that, power and strength, right? Ability to, to generate force quickly and just being able to move more weight, right? More resistive training are the things that really, Help prevent falls and keep people independent for the long term.
So that would look like fast movements, uh, maybe a little bit of impact and heavy resistive strength training. Yeah. Yep.
Alia: Yeah. And, and the ability to jump, which I know I have, you know, like a jumping from scratch program, the ability to jump helps you not fall. You have to be able to pick your feet up off the ground quickly, which is jumping in order to catch yourself when you’re about to fall.
So those things are super. Super important. I mean like
Caitlin: quick, quick reaction time. Yeah. Is important. And you’re not going to train that quality with slow fluid movements where you’re totally shifting weight and in control like yoga or like Tai Chi and not that there aren’t, like you said, great benefits to those practices.
They just don’t train those qualities. Um. Right. In the way that they’re done and the way that for sure movement is done.
Alia: And I think I just plug in here that, you know, with, in this conversation, if anyone’s listening and they are thinking, when we say older adult, you know, you’re thinking about 70 year olds, 80 year olds, 90 year olds.
I mean, people who are 50 are losing the ability to jump and move quickly. People who are 40 oh. Or losing the ability to jump and move quickly. So this applies to anybody .
Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of my clients that I just saw today was. She said that she had shared with her primary care physician something about getting up off the floor without using her hands or without using furniture to help her get up off the floor.
And she said to her, her doctor gave her this look of surprise like, Oh, you can do that? You can get off the ground without using the furniture. And she is. Inner 50s, right? So yeah, so I know when I heard that I was like, oh, okay. Like
Alia: That is my number one assessment that I do with anybody who walks in the door. For the first time, the first assessment is how do you get down and up off the floor?
Caitlin: Right. Yeah, and we shouldn’t be I. It’s really kind of it freaked me out that there are people who are in a place of being surprised That someone in their fifties can get up off the floor without using something like an ottoman or something to get themselves right. It’s
Alia: a
Caitlin: medical authority
Alia: figure at that.
Caitlin: Right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think we should have a little more trust that like, Like maybe we should strive for people in their 80s being able to do that. No problem and not be surprised when that happens Yeah, let’s let’s set the bar a little higher shall we just a little
Alia: again and that goes back to the to the topic of ageism It’s just the way that we The way that we as a society the structural The structural way we think about older people and the way that we’ve seen older people move in Western society and the United States in general because it’s not the same wherever you go.
Those assumptions are, they’re strong, they’re strong assumptions and they show up, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Caitlin: And well, and now, yeah, and that you point that out too, living in our society of sitting on chairs. Yeah. We, at a certain point in life, don’t need to get down on the ground and up again. And so we stop and then we just.
And I think that’s where we’re going to find one day that we can’t do that anymore. Whereas in places where people do commonly get down onto the ground for their meals and other things, like it’s, it’s a totally different situation. Yeah,
Alia: Yeah, for sure. And the way that they think about the way that other cultures think about aging in general, like, you know, in a lot of Asian cultures, older people are regarded as wise.
And as soon as you have someone. Feeling with their older age that that’s a benefit that they’re gaining wisdom You’ve got confidence and that will translate into your physical ability to do things right away Just believing that you are in a place that is not Deteriorating and that is a place of reverence in society that will translate to how you move your body 100 percent one of the things that I really like about What would that I was trying to include in the mob by having really qualified?
You Coaches and a physical therapist is that the first point of entry? For somebody who’s starting to have pain somewhere musculoskeletally will be one of those coaches. So one of the, one of the industry gaps, and this is the, this is tied into the idea of overmedicalization, is that you, let’s say your ankle starts to hurt you and maybe you ignore it for a little bit and it starts to hurt some more.
So then you go to the doctor, you go to your primary care physician. Your primary care physician needs to refer you out to Needs to refer you out to somebody else to get x ray or MRI. That can take a couple of weeks, so then you go get an x-ray or you get an MRI and then you see that there might be a little bit of a tear or maybe a small stress fracture, but maybe there’s a tear going on or something.
That whole process, so now you’ve gotten an image that is telling you a story about your pain. Maybe a month or two months that’s passed. During that time, you haven’t known what to do or how to handle it. So one of the things that I think is really shifting is this idea that physical therapists and even some chiropractors can be the first line of care for people experiencing musculoskeletal discomfort.
So the first person you go to is not your primary care physician, but as a physical therapist. So then you have someone who’s intervening with non invasive treatment, which is physical therapy and strength training. And so you’re kind of cutting short this cycle and you are doing it more quickly. I actually saw an email come through a couple of weeks ago that the military is going to start allowing physical therapists to be the first line of care for military personnel because it’s much more cost effective and it’s much more effective in terms of the treatment time.
And so the mob, what I, what I really hope will happen over the course of some time, cause it’s only a few months old, is that these members who are developing these really close relationships with the coaches and the physical therapists, when they start to have some pain for whatever reason. They already have these relationships with these coaches.
They can just ask them a question or they can book a one on one session, or they can literally ask them in class and most likely it’s not going to be a medical issue, right? And it’s something that you can just deal with in the moment within the strength training class, you increase their confidence and the whole treatment time.
It’s like, cut in, you know, cut in half. Yeah.
Caitlin: So, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, and that’s, and just for a little bit of further education, because I feel like this is so important in my profession with physical therapy, the reason that physical therapists in the United States now receive a doctorate a physical therapy, a DPT, is because it went from being a two years master’s degree program to being a three year clinical doctorate so that people have direct access.
And what that means is that they are able to go see a physical therapist without a referral from a physician. What that also means in terms of the level of education that brings the PT profession to a DPT is that we are trained. More thoroughly in the medical side of things to be able to recognize and screen for and rule out red flags that might be a disease process that seems like some kind of musculoskeletal pain or issue, but something that we identify as.
a reason to refer someone then onto a physician to say, this is not actually something to be treated with physical therapy. I don’t have anything to treat here. You’re getting the kind of symptoms that tell me you need to go see a physician. So, there is also that extra layer built into the PT profession now so that people can confidently come and see us as kind of a first care provider when, when they have something that they think might be musculoskeletal symptoms.
Alia: I didn’t know that that was the difference. Thank you for that, that’s huge. That’s a really important piece of information. I don’t, yeah, I didn’t know that. Yeah, and it just kind
Caitlin: transitioned when more and more states in the United States started allowing direct access, is that then the physical therapy, uh, degree was, was heightened to that.
Level so that yeah, so that if I encounter someone that is presenting with the kind of kind of red flag symptoms that I Want them to get seen by another provider, a specialist or just go back to their primary care physician Then I can send them in that direction Yeah, very cool. Yeah, it’s great.
It is. Yeah, and I completely agree with you. There are a lot of things that can be resolved and improved really quickly if people get the right treatment soon enough before it is kind of, yeah, put through the whole ring or the medical profession. Yes. Let’s talk about a term that you used with me recently, Alia.
AndI actually had not heard this before. It was a new one for me, but when you explained it to me, I was like, Oh, I get it. And that’s. That’s a really awesome way to think about life. You mentioned One Rep Max Living, and I’d love for you to talk about what that means and how you help your clients with that.
Alia: Yeah. One Rep Max Living, uh, which stands for One Repetition Max, is a term coined by Dustin Jones, who’s a physical therapist out of Kentucky, who is part of the Institute for Clinical Excellence. It’s just a really great organization with a lot of. Forward and progressive thinking physical therapists that stay on top of the research and offer a bunch of courses, a couple of which I’ve taken.
So he coined the term one rep max living. So for anyone listening who doesn’t know what one rep max is, in strength training, one rep max is the load at which you can do one repetition of a movement or exercise. And so one rep max living refers to living your life in such a way that you can only do one repetition.
time, one repetition of a daily task. So, for example, if you want to think of picking a box up off of the floor, let’s say the box is 20 pounds. If you can pick up the box 20 pounds, and it’s really difficult for you to do, it’s really heavy, you’re nervous about it, you’re worried about straining your back, maybe you do strain your back, or it’s complicated, maybe you can’t even do it, that would be your one repetition maximum.
You might be able to do it one time. So, what you would want to do, Is not live to your one rep max. You want to live beyond it. You want your capacity to be greater. So what you would want to do is train at the gym, picking up something up off the floor, something like a deadlift. You want to be able to do 20 pounds multiple times with different positions, maybe even heavier than 20 pounds in different ways and maybe different speeds.
So it’s about increasing your capacity beyond what is required of you to mitigate that. injury. And I think there’s two important ways to look at it. So one would be to mitigate injury to make injury less likely to happen, but also that you have the capacity or the reserves if something does happen.
So for instance, and it can be one looking at picking up a box is very specific, but you can look at one rep max as, as, as an example. As broadly applicable to the idea of like fitness meeting that absolute minimum requirement to function so if you let’s say you are 80 years old and Walking for you is fine, but maybe you can’t really walk more than half a mile at a time, and you’re pretty slow at walking, but you can do it.
Let’s say you turn your ankle, or strain your ankle. You now probably don’t have the reserves. To continue to be able to walk while your foot is healing, you may not be able to use so anytime if you, if you strain your foot, you’re going to be compensating by putting more weight on the other leg. You probably don’t have the strength in your other leg to deal with the compensation.
You may have to actually be off of your feet for six weeks, which is really debilitating at that age. So you don’t have the reserves. So what you want to do ideally to train for that is to walk faster, walk at different speeds, walk with weights in your hands. leg strength so that walking becomes walking half a mile because it becomes something that is more accessible for you to do so that when something happens, you have the capacity to deal with the injury in such a way that doesn’t leave you completely incapacitated.
Does that make sense?
Caitlin: Yeah.
Alia: Yeah,
Caitlin: absolutely.
Alia: So, yeah, I think there’s two ways of looking at it. So the way that we deal, I mean, I work with my clients and in the mob in two big ways, one is that. Everybody. has a degree of being able to do, we get them to be able to do fundamental movements, like getting down and up off the floor, and pushing and pulling, and falls prevention stuff, and quick, like we were talking about, quick movements, and then we add weight to everything.
Like really getting people to be comfortable with weight and comfortable with getting heavy weights. I know that you recently talked to someone about getting a heavier weight and she did, and she got a weight that I think she got 30 pounds kettlebell, which I think is a lot. And that’s super exciting to get people more comfortable with the idea of picking things that are heavy and doing things multiple times so that when it comes down to it in their daily life.
It’s really easy for them to do. And even just educating people about that gets them to be more motivated about it and think about the kinds of movements they do in their daily lives.
Caitlin: Yeah. And then I think too, it’s kind of a self amplifying cycle because when someone builds the capacity to do more in their daily life, They do more in their daily life Yes, and then and then all those hours of the day are bringing them to higher levels of capacity right, I mean IT talk about this a little bit in rehab how like i’ll get somebody over the hump of like the initial stages of Uh pain and sensitivity in the like acute early stages of an injury and then we talk about Not doing, you know, more robust exercises, progressing their exercises they’re doing with me in the clinic and that they’re doing at home, but I always end up reminding people like it’s more than just these exercises becoming harder and more so that you’re building more capacity.
You are just starting to feel comfortable walking longer distances, more walking volume, take the subway instead of the bus and go up and down the subway stairs. Like as you start to get more comfortable. Doing the things that were previously a little bit hard to do You are doing more of the hard things all day every day And that’s huge too.
I mean, it’s like you only do so much in a class or in a training session. But like, what are you doing all those other things? 12 to 15 hours of the day when you’re out and about um all of that. It’s like all of it rises
Alia: It’s really awesome. Yes, it is. So awesome. And I think It’s it’s it’s That’s, yeah, that’s a really great way of putting it, and, you know, it works in reverse, which is, and this is I think sometimes the, the, this is usually the state at which people are coming to me for the first time, is when they realize that, Okay, so I can’t get down up off.
I can’t get down onto the floor and back up again which means that I’m not doing anything on the floor, which means there’s a whole kind of world of hip mobility that is avoided when you actually don’t spend any time on the floor. And so it’s a vicious cycle. It’s a cycle in both directions and Yeah.
How do we get people to cycle up instead of cycle down?
Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. I had a whole talk about this with my friend, Elizabeth Whip, who teaches, uh, she’s a strength coach here at my studio. And we got into a conversation about chair exercise classes. And while there’s a time and a place for that, and yes, it creates accessibility and it’s important for some people to be able to sit and exercise.
We were both just questioning whether a lot of the people who sit. Should you exercise really need to be sitting to exercise and, and how, like, it might be super valuable for a lot of those folks to be up on their feet and moving around and gettin down on the ground and getting up and not, not being sitting in a chair for all of, you know, Their day and all of their exercise Yep.
Yep.
Alia: And
Caitlin: I mean,
Alia: I think it’s a great tool There’s there’s again like you said there’s a time and a place and there’s a lot of people who can’t get out of the chair But for those who can absolutely at least spend a portion of their time, um moving. I have a client . She’s amazing. She’s my oldest client.
She’s 96 turning 97 this year, and she is mostly chair bound, but she’s pretty, pretty debilitating arthritis in her hip. But we, every session, we get up off the floor, uh, up off the chair and back down with her walker, but she’s experienced and she is so open to it and so excited about it, but just giving her a few moments of the day where she’s Standing up on her feet walking around and sitting back down.
So yeah, totally.
Caitlin: Yeah, and and you know I’m with the understanding that that will be hard for some folks and a lot of folks will need one on one support for that and all of those things and yeah, but I think getting people to like kind of seeing people and And getting them to work at, at really their true edge of their capacity is, is so important rather than just assuming that, that a bunch of people would just be better off staying in a chair, you know?
Yep. Yeah. This is where we’re putting our assumptions in terms of what people are capable of doing. And can we raise those up a little bit, expect a little more?
Alia: Yes, there’s the underestimation of people who also underestimate themselves. I mean, there’s a, we, we not only have the role of not making assumptions, but we also have the role of really helping someone find the truth.
What their capacity is when they’re nervous and when they’re underestimating themselves doing so in a way that’s safe and comfortable and that people, people’s capacity always it, mine included, you know, working with a coach, I know that my capacity is greater than what I think it is. Our capacity is always greater than what we think it is.
And so if we work with someone who can bring that out in us, we are going to be infinitely stronger and more capable and more functional in the long run in everyday life.
Caitlin: Yeah. I love love that. I love it. Thanks, Alia. Yeah. I could talk to you about this all day, but I think, I think we should wrap it up at least for now, but maybe we can do a part two or maybe, if, if folks listening have any questions on any of these talks, you can always reach out to me at helloatpracticehuman.
com and I’m, I’m always happy to like,
I like to end these talks with a question about what lights you up, or what you’re into, what you’re jiving on. Besides your Coaching work, because I know as clinicians and teachers and coaches, we devote so much of our time and energy to learning and absorbing ourselves in these topics. I always like to hear a little tidbit of like, outside of all of this, what are you into?
Alia: Yeah, you can usually find me in the kitchen. I love to cook. I love to cook. I grew up in a household where cooking and shopping for food and trying new things in the kitchen was a huge part of our, my, my growing up. So I love to cook.I’m just, I love to be outdoors. Hiking, being active outdoors is probably one of my favorite things.
So whether it’s tennis or hiking, going upstate to the Catskills, running, anything outside in nature. Yeah, I’m also learning Spanish. I’ve been doing that for a few years andI, it’s really fun to learn something, to actively learn something that has nothing to do with my everyday work. It’s great.
Caitlin: Yeah.
Yeah. But I’m sure a lot of times would really be handy.I really need to learn Spanish one day. My husband speaks Spanish and his, his family, but I, yeah. I was gonna learn and while I was in PT school and then I was like, no, what am I thinking? I’m in PT school, but I really think that one of my professors in school who I’d really admire from Hunter Always said that she advocated for having a couple of semesters in our curriculum that was Spanish for healthcare providers.
And I think any program should have that. And, uh, I loved that idea and yeah, that’s definitely an ambition of mine at some point, to learn Spanish. So, Alia, how can people reach you? How can people find out more information about joining the mob? I’m going to put some links in the show notes, but if people are interested in reaching you, working with you, what’s the best Point of contact?
Alia: Uh, the best point of contact is my email address, which is alia@aliabisat.com. I have two websites: aliabisat.com is my personal website with my personal one on one coaching Chronic pain strength and mobility for chronic pain site and then join-the-mob.com It’s join-the-mob.com.
Unfortunately, because jointhemob.com is going to cost me a lot of money. So that’s the website that I have. and that you can find more information on that. But the way that joining the mob works is there’s a consultation required, which I think is a really nice point of entry for people, especially if you’re nervous about it, or you’re just not sure if it’s the right thing to do.
So everybody has to have a consult with me. So you just reach out to me. I think the website says that you have to download the app first, but you don’t. You can just reach out to me. We set up a consult, we chat, and then, uh, and then go from there. And I just want to say real quickly, too, that the membership is free.
There’s financial assistance and sliding scale options for anyone that feels like that is a really, that that’s a barrier for them to join. So I just want to put that out there.
Caitlin: Great. Thank you for that. Yeah. And I also love that point, that joining the membership always starts with a one on one consultation.
So you’re already gathering kind of information about a person’s goals and what they’re looking for and getting a one on one assessment. And I think that’s great. That’s really great for, kind of bringing somebody in to feel more confident, more comfortable in the classes.
Alia: Yes, and they get, you know, monthly check-ins or a regular part of the mob.
So everyone, you’re being, someone’s keeping tabs on you and helping support you through the membership. So that’s always there.
Caitlin: Yeah. That’s so great. Well, I’ll link both your websites in the show notes. Also link your Instagram and the mob’s Instagram. And, during the time of me publishing this episode, I’ll put links in my bio links on Instagram to my practice human Instagram page.
Thanks Alya. This was great. It was lovely talking to you. Yeah, this was fun. Thank you so much. Lovely talking
Alia: to you too.
Caitlin: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed my talk with Alia. If you have any questions or observations to share with us here at Practice Human, please reach out at hello@practicehuman.com. And if you benefit from some of the information that you pick up here on the podcast, I would really appreciate it if you leave us a rating and a review, it will help our conversations grow.
