Personal Training Client: Koh Mui Geak
Age: 54
Occupation: Homemaker
Personal Trainer: Karen Goh
Since 2010, at the age of 50, I have been suffering from neck, lower back and knee pain. X-rays and MRI have shown that my cervical spine C5 – 7, lumbar L4 – 5 and knee caps have degenerated thus causing constant muscle tightness, pain and numbness.
My neck pain usually resulted in constant headaches, migraines and numbness of my upper back. The grade 2 forward displacement of my
L4 over L5 (called spondylolisthesis) results in lower back pain and sometimes when the nerves were compressed, I had pain shooting down my left leg. According to the doctor, the only option I had—when it reached grade 4—is surgery, which I wanted to avoid. My knees were swollen due to water retention and I had difficulty squatting, as well as going up and down the stairs.
Despite visiting the physiotherapist for traction and various TCM practitioners for acupuncture and cupping, the relief of pain was only temporal. My condition and pain got worse. I woke up every morning with misery and pain all over!
Then my saviour came along, thanks to my sister-in-law, Kheng Song, who introduced me to Karen. She shared with me how trainers from FTI have helped to fix body aches and pain for herself, my brother, relatives and friends.
I was desperately looking for any help so I decided to give it a try.
In the first session, Karen did an assessment of my medical and physical condition. She concluded I am a challenging case indeed. Over the following 3 months, I saw her twice a week with the first few sessions spent solely on releasing all my tight muscles using her skilled hands and interesting gadgets. In the initial stage, during and after every session, my body went through great pain, which I had been forewarned, due to the hyper tight muscles.
Soon after, Karen was able to slowly introduce exercises to activate and strengthen my muscles. I began to look forward to the sessions as each was well planned, varied with interesting exercises using different equipment. Karen taught me strengthening exercises I could do at home and also showed me how to release tight muscles. Gradually over the months, the aches, pain and tightness reduced significantly. As such my blood circulation has improved and I feel healthier and happier. My flexibility, mobility and stamina have increased. I am more confident to travel and resume my daily exercises.
Currently I still see Karen once a week for maintenance and strengthening in order to prevent my joints from deteriorating further if possible to avoid surgery. I am very thankful and grateful to Karen who has been very professional, dedicated and extremely patient especially explaining repeatedly to me how our whole body muscles work. I am still very amazed how spot on and magical as she works on any swollen joints and pain and the results are almost immediate! Her treatment and exercises are very effective!
Special thanks to Nelson too who has helped me in a few sessions and especially when I had an episode of vertigo last year. His genius creation of the Therapy Ball works wonderfully on the pressure points for relieving pain from tight muscles. Trainers and staffs are all very professional and friendly, creating a comfortable and desirable place for training. I have and will certainly continue to recommend friends to FTI, as there is no other better place for training and fixing body pain!
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