Reigniting Recovery: Brain-Centered Wellness at Home

Meet Tom Jensen, founder of Elect Wellness. He aims to make health improvements accessible and effective for everyone. They bring the gym to you!
Programs are holistic, covering in-home physical training, dietitian-led nutrition coaching, and lifestyle counseling. Elect Wellness promotes structured exercise that boosts neuroplasticity,supports neural repair with targeted nutrients like omega‑3s and antioxidants, and removes barriers to consistent rehabilitation. Clients enjoy daily support and a thorough 27‑point monthly check‑in. 
Tune in to discover how Elect Wellness is redefining recovery for brain injury survivors through precision, compassion, and convenience.

Transcript

Bernard: 0:10

Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the hosts bindwaves or the Brain Injury Network. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for professional medical advice, the diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Thank you.

Carrie: 0:38

Hi, I'm Carrie, a stroke survivor, and a member of BIND.

Brittany: 0:41

Hi, I'm Brittany and I'm a TBI survivor and a member of BIND. Our guest today is Thomas Jensen, founder and president of Elect Wellness. Tom has a Bachelor in Science in Exercise Science and is a certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He is exercise physiologist. Nutritionist, um, he has been training and consulting clients of all ages for over 20 years. So, Tom, what is elect wellness?

Tom: 1:19

Uh, great question. We are a home delivered service, um, that basically helps people improve the quality of life. And the way we do that is through a mixture of nutrition, coaching, personal training, and lifestyle counseling. Um, so we make it very convenient for our clients by coming right to their homes, and then we take a very comprehensive approach. Um, by hitting on all the different aspects that we believe improved the health of a person.

Carrie: 1:46

Mm-hmm. Okay. And well, and so that brings me to my next question, which may, you may have written it exactly right. Um, when I'm looking at your website, do y'all also have a physical location people can go to or is it just all home based?

Tom: 1:57

All of the services home delivered. Okay. We do have a physical location where we meet as a team. And, uh, we learn and we develop and, and now that we're actually selling franchises as well, we'll bring in those franchisees to teach and train them. But as far as the service, it is completely home delivered. Okay. Obviously the physical stuff is physical and then some of the nutrition and life style counseling happens over the phone and video chats and text.

Carrie: 2:22

So there's no gym to go to?

Tom: 2:23

There's no gym to go to.

Carrie: 2:24

Okay. so that, there's is that Yeah.

Brittany: 2:27

So with the, um, service, so how does the pricing work?

Tom: 2:32

Sure. The, it's, it's very, um, customizable, I should say. Um, in fact, whenever someone asks about pricing, we, we literally direct them to a page on our website, which looks a lot like a, like a car builder almost, where you choose your options, what you want, what you don't want, um, because everyone wants something different. Some people might want four personal training visits Um, a week. Other people might want the nutrition aspect, or they want just the nutrition and not the training, or they want a certain level of nutrition, accountability and intensity, um, with a different level of training or vice versa. So from a range, you're looking at anywhere from$250 a month to as much as$2,500 a month. Um, for example, if two people as a couple were doing. Everything. Um, so there's usually a sweet spot that someone can find that works for their budget and for, um, their needs. And a lot of folks will just do as much of, as much as they can. Um, because oftentimes the more accountability, the more help you get, especially in the beginning of someone's journey, um, the better off they are. And then they might taper it down as they are able to do more on their own. So it's, it's quite a range, but it is, um, we don't pretend to be cheap or easy or for everyone.

Carrie: 3:52

That's, that's fair. And it sounds like, like we tell a lot of people, you know, one brain injury is not like the other brain injury. So again, you're catering Absolutely. Per person. So everything's not everyone wants something different and needs something different, so Absolutely. And that brings me to another question. So I know we learned about you from another member who has a brain injury. So do y'all have experience working with brain injury survivors already? Absolutely. Are we new to you?

Tom: 4:16

Um, no. We've had a, a long list, um, as a percentage of our clientele, I would say. And, and I don't want to group everything into brain injury, but we've had, um, people who have been thrown from their vehicle and, and had traumatic brain injury. We've had people who've had, um, spinal cords, nick during surgery. Uh, we had a gentleman who went multiple minutes without oxygen. Um, we've had, uh, a tethered spinal cord. Um, post, uh, stroke rehab. Um, and then in addition to that, although it's not quite the same, some of the beneficial therapies are similar. We've worked with people with cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and um, you know, various nervous system, uh, disorders and challenges. That might not have been a specific injury or depending on who you ask mm-hmm. Might not be able to be pegged to a specific Sure. Uh, time of injury. Um, but a lot of the same therapies will benefit those as well. So we have, we weren't looking for that experience in the beginning. I remember the first, um, lady we had who had a son with cerebral palsy, and I've never worked with anything of the sort, and, and I was a little nervous going in. And she was amazing. She just, she just said, look, this is how it is. This is what he wants. These are his goals. We don't feel like he should be held back from pursuing his goals, you know, just'cause he has these challenges and I'm not asking you to know everything coming in. Just learn as you go and work with him. And that was a very eye-opening experience for me and very good experience for me. Um, and, uh, he, I mean, I think ABC news covered that at one point. Oh wow. He, he went, he was first person ever with cerebral palsy to go on American Ninja Warrior. Oh wow. And actually compete on one of those courses, gained about 25 pounds of muscle improved dysfunction dramatically. And then we started getting calls like crazy. Um, all sorts of stuff that I didn't even know existed at the time. I hadn't even, hadn't even heard of. Um, but it was great because I actually have a sister with a brain tumor. Who would later on have a stroke, um, as well. So, and then a father with Parkinson's. So a lot of this stuff, um, was close to home as well. Some of it was closer to home than I even knew at the time. Um, so that's, that's how Elect wellness started serving this population, it's not the only population we serve. Sure. But it's become an a consistent percentage of the clients that we serve over the years. And, and no doubt being a home delivered service has something to do with that as well. Folks might just not want to go to a gym and, uh, end up finding us and we end up finding them and, and it works well together. So we're very blessed in that regard.

Brittany: 6:55

That's great. That's good. Yeah. So you also do nutrition coaching. So what is involved with the nutrition coaching? Is it learning? How about nutrition? Is it learning how to cook or what is it other things that are taken factor to it? Yeah,

Tom: 7:10

great question. It's, it's kind of all of the above. Um, a lot of nutrition coaching historically has been, I always joke like two people sitting across from a table, you know, from each other at a table, maybe once a month. And basically lying to each other. And, um, it just, you can't change your life with nutrition in that, uh, the way people have traditionally done it. Right. Um, nutrition is very difficult to implement. So what we do is we have a licensed and registered dietician that works with, uh, all of our clients or as many clients who, who will and want to. Um, we have our clients record their diet every single day, and that comes to our dietician and she actually reviews their food every single day. Uh, on, on Monday she reviews it for the weekend, but five days a week she's looking at precisely what they ate and then giving them advice, giving them substitutions, giving them improvements, encouraging them, congratulating them on the positive habit changes that they've made. And then once a week they get together on the phone or usually video chat for 15 minutes. Um, so they can keep a good relationship too.'cause sometimes emailing back and forth back your food just feels like you're getting criticized. So they have those weekly conversations, how to overcome challenges and really rebuild habit loops. Right? Um, and then once a month there's an assessment process. Perhaps they're doing it with a dietician alone. Or with the trainer, they'll have the biometric assessment so we can get that real biometric data. How has body composition changed? How has that changed? And then, um, that so many times goes back to the diet. It's not just the training, not at all. Right? Um, and then she can review that and update their approach, um, based on what she sees happening. You know, sometimes someone's not following the plan. Sometimes you might find you have the wrong plan. Depending on what has happened, and then you adjust. But the, the client is learning and being educated through all of that, but we never thought that was enough. We wanted to hold'em accountable to actually doing it so they could experience the benefits. And that's, that's where the rubber meets the road. And that is the hard part, and that's what most services are unwilling to do because of the time involvement. But we think it's worth it.

Carrie: 9:30

That's great. And again, speaking again more directly about our population and I'm sure there's other people that are just, that aren't brain injured that have this issue as well. Um, how do y'all kind of work with the nutritionist work on limited budget or fixed income? Because we can talk about the healthy eating and the good brain food that we need to eat, but it might exceed our budget, you know, so

Tom: 9:54

yeah. Great. Great question. Um. Uh, I, I, I'll say this about that, um, I have met, uh, some very overweight people who got there on completely organic diets and, um, it's not there, there's definitely a relationship between expense and the quality of food, but it, there doesn't always have to be okay, and it's not as one-to-one as some people think. Uh, we went to Puerto Rico a while ago and you know, everyone's just selling the fruit and things just right off their farm in their backyard. It is the most amazing fruit I've ever tasted. In my life anywhere. Um, and it was cheap'cause it was just right there and it's, and it's what they had. But it is a balance. Um, in fact, if, if I couldn't pick the stuff and the quantity of the stuff, and you gave me a hundred percent organic on this side, and then I could pick the stuff and the quantity of stuff and none of it was organic, for example, on this side, if the one that I had more control over that group, I could get the person. Better results with. So you can buy Walmart chicken breast, you can buy non-organic fruits and vegetables, and the combination in how you put those things together can still give you dramatic improvements in results. Now, is it better to have something that's completely non GMO and organic? Um, sure in an apples to apples world, but we have never found it to be a real apples to apple world. Sure. I used to work at General Nutrition Center and have people come in and tell me how they avoid. Um, bananas because they have too much sugar, you know, but they're 400 pounds and they forgot five minutes ago they told me about the pizza and beer they were having last Thursday, but it's like they've chosen that little thing. You know, I can avoid bananas, so I'm gonna be proud about it. I'm gonna talk about it. But the banana's not the problem. So, um, once, once people actually write down what they're eating and you take a look at it and we show it back to'em. We've even done photo journals. Um, so I took, had this girl take photos of her food for three months and I showed it to her basically on a huge mosaic on the iPad. And she's like. Wow, I see exactly what I need to do. And it's not, um, it's usually not anywhere near as expensive as you think it is. It's just some changes. Um, but that's a great question because I think that's in a lot of people's minds that if I'm need to eat healthy, it'll cost so much more. And that's not necessarily the case. It can be, but it doesn't at all have to be.

Carrie: 12:19

That's good to know. And yeah, I hate to say a mosiac what I eat because I, I know I'm not a healthy eater like vegetables green. Mm.

Tom: 12:27

Sometimes we just go out so much. And remember during COVID, everyone surprisingly had all this extra money. Of course they were printing a lot of it too, but, and this extra, extra money on hand. And part of that was like, I mean, not going out and dropping.$50 on a brunch, on accident. Right. You know, so that'll buy a lot of good groceries. Yeah,

Brittany: 12:43

definitely. So I know you said that you work at a different nutrition facility, but with your, um, nutrition coaching, how does it, um, varies from other people, other facilities and wellness centers?

Tom: 12:58

I think it's that, that accountability is the primary piece that daily accountability, day in and day out. Reviewing what you did, taking a real look at it. And then getting very personal with how they're gonna approach it and, and how to make those, um, changes where other people are. Sometimes they're just delivering microwaveable meals in a, in a plastic bag, which, uh, as a brain injury group, you probably know how bad it is to heat up plastics, you know? And so they're either just giving you this microwavable stuff, or, or they're having those consults where there's no real follow through on, on if you're actually doing it. So I think it's that. That hyper personal and very daily and consistent accountability, um, to change and then being in someone's home. Although the nutritionist Al isn't always in the home, if they're doing the training, for example, if you're, if you're seeing'em two or three times a week, you get a very good idea of their lifestyle. You can see how they're interacting with their spouse, how they're interacting with their kids. Many times you'll see the open pantry, you'll see the open fridge. You might see food being delivered, or like you, you, it's really hard to hide. Hm. Um, which can be uncomfortable for people sometimes because it's, it's, you gotta open up and be transparent with your nutrition coach, but that's really where all the power happens. Um, I won't name any names, so I'll just share this, but we've had a handful of clients that we worked with for like five or six years, and then on year seven, um, you know, we start seeing things in, in food journals that we had never seen for the previous seven years. And we know they didn't just start eating this right. But they might have finally found com, uh, found themselves comfortable enough to really open up and like, okay, now I'm gonna show you the other 20% I've been hiding. Mm-hmm. And that's where the real power comes in. And, and we've gotten, uh, better at that in working with people. Um, because I know that if, if people feel judged or feel critiqued, they'll tend to hide. Sure. So we will tell'em about our struggles and our personal challenges as well. And just. Try to show them that this is not about judging or, or anything moral here. This is about laying all your cards on the table so we can help you play the game better. Um, and I think that's, that's really what sets us apart.

Carrie: 15:12

Now, this isn't a question we had, but just I'm, now, I'm thinking anytime about, you know, going in their home and seeing things. So how does the. What's the word I wanna use? Um, the person going in, doing the physical therapy, doing the workouts, and the nutritionist, I'm sure there's discussions there. It can't be just, you know, one-on-one, the nutritionist and one-on-one, the therapist. There's gotta be like a, everybody kind of talks to each other, so they, you're getting the full picture kinda thing. Ab absolutely.

Tom: 15:40

We have a, a smaller and very tight team. Those meetings, every week, discussions happen there. Our team is constantly calling each other, texting each other, updating, each other on where someone is at and what they're going through. So you're absolutely right. It's a, everyone needs to be on board and on the same page, um, delivering a consistent message and aware of what's going on. Um, and, you know, and they'll inform us as well sometimes with schedule changes and this and that, and program, um, updates. So the, the trainers are talking to us as the owners. They're talking to the nutritionist. Uh, we're all talking to each other at the meetings. And just trying to make sure that we're keeping that client hitting on all, on all cylinders and that we're all aware of the challenges that are, um, that are facing them.

Carrie: 16:26

So, hide your candy wrappers.

Tom: 16:30

Yeah. I used, when I did the, uh, nutrition coaching myself years ago, I used to bring a, a big black trash bag. Um, and then they're, you know, one of their most motivated moments, right? As they're coming on board, we would just bag everything up. It's funny'cause I would take stuff over to McKinney Food Kitchen and, and uh, like, oh, you want to donate this? And I'm like, no, they don't need to be eating that either. We're gonna throw that one away. These will donate. These are good enough, healthy enough to give to children that I don't even want to give to'em. You know, if it's, if it's like, uh, some of the sugar, fake color candies or whatever, right. But you know, the canned foods and stuff that you're gonna step up from, you know, maybe we'll donate this and we would just, we would just clear the house outright. Uh, right then and there. Um, and those, those are some amazing stories of change when people, and it doesn't happen. Everyone comes with a different level of intensity, especially to the nutrition because food is so deeply connected to us emotionally. Mm-hmm. Um, some people are ready to change some things, but not everything. Like, let's just start with the exercise. We'll get the nutrition piece later. Um, but those folks that are really ready to go, we try not to slow them down. Um, but a lot of people, and I, and I actually really enjoy working with these people'cause I think they're more practical and realistic. It's let's change one habit at a time. Let's focus on getting more water, and we might spend a few weeks with that being a pure focus. Now let's focus on getting more protein. Let's focus on the fruits, focus on the vegetables, and focusing on those positive additions. Mm-hmm Is much better than focusing on negative subtractions.'cause you add enough positive things into your life lot, lot of times the negative will get shoved out. But if you're just trying to not do certain temptations, then you're just gritting your teeth and barring it, you know? Um, so we like to add all the positives first, and that makes it a lot easier to let go of the negatives and your, your body starts working better, your brain starts working better, your circulation, your muscles. And that improves your self-control and your ability to take that, that next step if you're, if you're unhealthy. Um, the self-control, the self-discipline, the motivation, the energy to change is very hard to come up with. So that's why I'm so impressed with what, what you guys do, you know, after something like a brain injury. Um, everyone I've met, I don't know if it's just because they're, they're looking to get healthy or maybe that's why I've interacted with'em, but they're some of the most motivated. Um, people and ready and wanting to change and it inspires so many of our other clients so many times, so I appreciate that.

Carrie: 19:03

Oh, that's great to hear. I'm gonna take a quick little break and just remind our listeners to go ahead and click that like button, click that share button, go ahead and click subscribe and notify so you get the next episode as well. Just keep clicking all those good ole buttons. And so, no, and I wanna say thank you again for saying how motivated and positive we are. We try every day, and unfortunately, I'm not gonna say all brain injury survivors, but a lot of us probably may have had our injury, depending on what it was. You know, not eating so healthy, you know, caused our high blood pressure, CLO caused our cholesterol, which kind of contributed to our stroke. I mean, I know mine with high blood pressure. I used to salt before I tasted. I no longer salt before I taste anymore. You know? So, I mean, we learned the hard way that maybe we should pay a little better attention to what we're doing.

Tom: 19:53

Yeah. And it's not, it's. And it's not even fair to say that that's the sole reason, right? No. Yeah. No. There's plenty of people out there that I said, yeah, no, I said contribute. But it does contribute. But I think even your willingness just to say that just proves that the place that you're in and ready for positive change and improvement, because that's what we try to get our clients to do, is look, you can't change the stuff that's outside of your control, but if you blame everyone else and everything else for everything, then you're left completely powerless.

Carrie: 20:23

Right to do

Tom: 20:24

anything about it. So, um, now there, and we've, we've got folks that wish they had done this and that and the other thing, you know, sooner. And, um, you know, there's all sorts of reasons. This stuff happens though too. And that's, you know, on my side of the table. Mm-hmm. People need to understand. Don't look at someone and think, oh, that this happened to them because of this or that, or you have no idea. You know, we've met so many people with so many different experiences and so many different reasons and causes and anesthesiologists, you know, falling asleep on the jobs themselves and leaving somebody's life changed forever.

Carrie: 21:01

Oh, wow.

Tom: 21:01

Um. You know, and yet that person that we worked with that I'm thinking of was still so happy and so positive and showed up to, to work and work hard every single day, you know, which is just really an inspiration, um, to see,'cause it, it felt like they were so wronged and it was so unfair. And yet they're the ones out there inspiring everybody else. Where people who are, you know, I don't believe that anyone is normal. I don't believe in normal, I think fair. I think we're all broken in one way or another. Mm-hmm. Um, but, um. To see other people waste, um, waste what they've been blessed with, ability wise and not do something with it. Where, for example, folks like yourselves who have been through hell and back, so to speak, out here, you know, changing the world and inspiring people. That's incredible. So

Carrie: 21:50

thank you for. Um, I noticed on your website too, I'm gonna change subject a little bit. Um, it talks about a 27 point assessment. Can you give us a little bit about information about what that is or what that entails?

Tom: 22:04

Sure. We, um, every single month. We will take a wide variety of things. So we'll take body fat composition. Um, we'll look at body fat, lean body mass, fat mass, muscle mass, uh, muscle. I might not'em all here, but muscle. That's mass percentage. That's, um, we'll look at flexibility. Um, we will look at various measurements, shoulder measurements, waist measurements, hip measurements, leg measurements, arm measurements. Um, we actually will take front, back and side photos. We will also run those photos through a posture analysis. So we'll look for things like forward head carriage or anterior anterior, uh, tilted scapulas, um, lateral pelvic tilt, valgus knees arch collapsed pronated feet. Um, as, as y'all have probably seen these. Are very present in folks that had a brain injury. Mm-hmm. Right? And, and I always think about it, like you've got, you've got software issues and you've got hardware issues, right?

Brittany: 23:04

Yes, definitely.

Tom: 23:05

And sometimes the software issues are causing the hardware issues, but sometimes the hardware issues are causing the software issues. And sometimes the software issues have caused hardware issues that have then gone back and caused additional software issues that cause additional hardware issues. And um, so our approach is to work on everything that we see and everything that we can. Um, work on.'cause if someone's got forward head carriage or something going on in the neck or shoulders and they've already got some, some nervous system challenges, will that potential impingement of the nerve or the spine. Um, sometimes it's a contact that provides more stimulation and then further tightens the muscle. Sometimes it's a contact or an impingement that reduces nerve transmission and then reduces that muscle and then you got another muscle in the body that tries to compensate. It jumps out and tightens up. So it's just. Yeah, everything is so interconnected. Yeah. And, um, you know, you've got this myofascial sling across your back. You can have a, a right hip out that throws your left neck off or left side of your neck. And, um, those are, those are tough and leave people that could otherwise maybe have a day doing certain things. Now, it's not that they lost a day, but that, that day became a lot harder and there's some stuff they couldn't do there. And then every time. The client can't do something that tends to, what tends to reduce movement. Mm-hmm. And be, and become more sedentary. And then that's less circulation. That's less blood. That's less, less. Oxygen. Blood and oxygen are some of the root, you know, the lack there are over some of the root causes of any brain injuries. So anything we can do to keep clients moving, keep clients feeling good, keep clients experiencing less pain, um, is gonna improve. Circulation and oxygen and make the brain nervous system function better,

Brittany: 24:46

which that actually hit close to home to me. That's why I was like, oh, excited. Well, not excited. I, I have f and d, which I got diagnosed with functional neuro symptoms disorder, which the doctor describe it like in computer. So basically your hard wear works, you can turn on computer, but if you're trying to open something and install something, the software goes haywire, which with me, my first year, mine was neglected. For seven months, my brain injury. Mm-hmm. So finally when I got like treatment, my myofascia was so tangled up, like if you got near me, I jumped, like everything was hurting. Like I saw colors, like I felt everything. So I couldn't do physical therapy until like a whole year later. And then my STA flows like all the way up and everything, so I know exactly, yeah. The feeling with the getting frozen shoulder and that's a, mm-hmm.

Tom: 25:34

That's a mess to work outta. And those, those are hard because it, it does go back and forth between the nervous system and the muscular system. And, um, we've gotta kind of address both and they are, uh, interconnected so tightly. Those are, those are tough. And that's where the, that's where the knowledge of the length tension relationships of the muscles and, and, right.'cause you don't, you can't just go out and stretch everything. Yeah. That's what people think. Oh, just stretch everything or just work everything. I'm like, well, you've gotta know. What is overly short and tight that might need to be released and relaxed and what is long and loose that might need to be strengthened, right? It's, it's seldom that you, you got neck pain, for example, that you should be stretching the junk out of both sides of your neck, right? Because it's one thing to be tight, it's a much worse thing to be tight. Uh, asymmetrically. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. If, if I want to have anterior pelvic tilt, I want it on both sides. I want an even shoulder tilt, et cetera. You know, we got one side doing one thing, the other side doing another thing that creates more gait issues and, and more complications. Mm-hmm. So, and in fact, we had a client one time go somewhere and, and just get, um, stretched, extreme stretched, and she came out much worse and in a lot of pain from that experience because. It was just too broad of a stroke. They didn't think through everything that was going on, although, although intentions were correct that the application was wrong.

Carrie: 27:02

Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so I know we had, um, one other question about, um, so I think you probably really already answered it. You do all these things, but. Do you do anything drastically differently, I guess would be the easiest way to put it with someone with diabetes.'cause I know several brain injury people didn't have diabetes before. Whatever caused that. And since then, they've since been diagnosed with diabetes. So

Tom: 27:32

yeah, the diabetes, it's, it's, it's simple and it's difficult. The approach is not vastly different. The, the thing about diabetes is, um. I was getting a little background in my tape, uh, as quickly as I can is your body's got about two gas tanks of glycogen. You've got your liver and you've got your muscles, and once the liver and the muscles are full, there's not much else to do with that glucose, right? Um, if you're not able to move and challenge your body and your muscles enough, then that extra fuel has nowhere to go. So it piles up in the blood and then it's on the kidneys to get it out of the body, or you're just causing a lot of inflammation issues, including blood vessels of the brain. The brain can literally atrophy from, um, excessive and chronic high blood sugar. Right? I think they're, they're calling a lot of these cognitive conditions now. Type three diabetes. Oh, in Europe and other places, they're literally naming it Type three diabetes. So yes, brain health. And, um, and blood sugar are very related. And, and I think as you mentioned, they're, they're causing issues in both directions, I believe. Um, so with type two diabetes, your goal is to get you, you're trying to use the fuel that's in your body. You want to daily empty those gas tanks, not completely right. Um, but you've got to create space in them every single day. And the stronger your muscles are and the harder you work your muscles, the more that blood sugar drops. And then it comes from your liver and refuels the muscles, and then you've got room for those carbohydrates that you're taking in through the nutrition to go into store rather than build up in the blood and become even toxic, um, to the brain or kidneys. So strength training is so vital in that, um, because it uses carbs as a fuel source. And, um, the great thing about strength training is it's not just, I, I kind of put it like this, like in business. You can trade time for money, clock in, clock out, get paid hourly, or um, maybe you can take some of those funds eventually and start a business or buy some real estate or buy some stocks such that you can try to get that money working even while you sleep without your time involvement. That's kind of how strength training is. As you get stronger, as you get more neuromuscularly coordinated, your body will use that fuel and use more of that fuel, right? Mm-hmm. You actually want worse gas mileage is what we're going for. Um, you don't want a Prius when you're trying to control blood sugar and diabetes. Um, you want the Ferrari, you want to get nine miles to the gallon. Mm-hmm. Not 40, right? Right. Because a lot of us are still putting in fuel. As if we're driving a Ferrari at nine miles a gallon, but we've got so little muscle, we're getting 40 miles to the gallon. Mm-hmm. And then just like if you were to fill up three times a day at a gas station, you're just gonna overflow and cause a mess on the body of your car. The same thing is happening to us. So that's the great thing about strength training and especially large muscle groups that have a high affinity for insulin, um, like the legs and the larger core muscles of the body. You make those stronger, then insulin becomes more efficient. You take more blood sugar into those and you keep the, uh, blood sugar at those healthy levels and you reduce the inflammatory damage, um, that then affects the brain and vice versa. So the strength training is very important and it's hard for a lot of folks who've had a brain injury to just go to a gym mm-hmm. And do strength training. But we actually bring a wide variety of equipment with us. So some people might have a home gym, but they don't need to have one at all. We bring all the equipment with us and we can work with those clients. You know, we, we've had clients who don't have any control over their fingers or their, yeah. And so we do manual resistance. Sometimes we do whatever we have to do to get the response in the client's body. Um, and I think that's a, uh, people sometimes swing the pendulum back and forth between, well, if I can't sprint around the block and lift barbells, then I can't Resistance strain. Mm-hmm. You know? Or if I can't go to jog, then I can't do aerobics. No aerobics is anything that gets you breathing, whatever that is. You sit in a chair and punch a mannequin in the face a hundred times, you know, real quickly, you know that that might be aerobic for you. It's very individual. It's whatever gets your heart rate up, it gets you breathing. And then with resistance training, it's the same thing. You know, a lot of times we might just provide manual resistance while someone does a chest press or, um, so forth with their forearms, you know, and we can also tie, you know, sand weights and, um, we use gait belts. Um, we might get in the pool for certain movements with certain clients. Um, there's all sorts of ways to use the equipment. And, um, it, it's funny, a long time ago we had a trainer who had a, a, a master's degree and had all the education in the world. Went over to a client who was in a wheelchair who had no use of her, uh, feet, basically anything from the knees down and, um, from the forearms down and came back and was like, I got nothing. There's nothing I can do with it. She just couldn't see how she would help this person. I was like, really? Mm-hmm. You know, I was like, and, and I think it was just, I think that she would do differently today, having more experience when she was younger and newer to the field. Sent another guy out there, I didn't have near the formal academic education, came back with a completely different report. Yeah, I think we can do this, this, this, this, this, and this. And really help her a lot. You know? And I'm like, yes, yes. And she was a client for the next 10 years, steady, um, where the first person I sent out there just couldn't see it. And that's when I realized we've gotta take the people. They might have these degrees, they might have these certifications, but we have to help them. How do you apply this knowledge? To anyone and everyone, wherever that client finds themselves.'cause it was the same science, just give'em a little bit different look and can throw some folks for a loop. And so that's what we've tried to prepare our team for. Um, you know, and honestly when we got the tethered spinal cord client, you know, that sounded really scary to me as a business owner. I'm sitting back here some liability thoughts as well, you know, um, but when you, when you treat people right, and you have the right intentions and you're just trying to help. Um, it's amazing, knock on wood how everything works out and, and your goals are on the same page. You're not against your clients, you're for your clients. You're in their corner. You're just trying to help them. And we all, we might have some knowledge limitations, just like they might have some physical limitations, but we're gonna make improvements in spite of it.

Brittany: 34:17

All right? Yeah. So thank you Tom, so much for joining us today, and thank you for all those who are listening today.

Tom: 34:24

I appreciate y'all having me.

Carrie: 34:25

Yeah, it was very informative. I would love it. Thanks. I got some more questions for you afterwards. Sure thing. Um, again, if you would like to contact us, you can email us at the bindwaves@thebind.org You can follow us on Instagram at@bindwaves and you can visit our website at thebind.org/bindwaves So yeah, like I said, follow us.

Brittany: 34:50

And don't forget to like, share and subscribe on all the platforms that you listen to. And don't forget to hit the notify button on YouTube while you're listening to bindwaves.

Carrie: 35:00

And, um, just remember you can find us on all your favorite platforms. So until next time.

Brittany: 35:04

Until next time,

Chosts: 35:06

We hope you've enjoyed listening to bindwaves and continue to support BIND in our nonprofit mission. We support brain injury survivors as they reconnect into the life, the community, and their workplace, and we couldn't do that without great listeners like you. We appreciate each and every one of you. Continue watching. Until next time. Until next time.