It all started in 2019.
A man in his 50s with Parkinson’s disease showed up at Lourdez Schwab’s gym, and she couldn’t say no.
- “He had been traveling a couple hours to another gym with a program for people with Parkinson’s, and he didn’t want to travel so far,” Schwab, the nine-year owner of Bar Path CrossFit in Willmar, MN, said.
That opened the floodgates, as pretty soon, the man brought in others with Parkinson’s, a degenerative nervous system disease that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements.
- “We weren’t even sure how to begin a program for people with Parkinson’s,” Schwab explained.
She was determined to figure it out, so she and her husband Jason started visiting the gym two hours away to learn from their Rock Steady Boxing program for those with Parkinson’s.
One thing led to another, and before she knew it, she had designed a program that combined Rock Steady Boxing with CrossFit and was training 40 men in their 70s, 80s, and 90s at different stages of the disease.
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- “We didn’t have the capacity, but they just kept coming to us and so we opened our hearts to it. And we started making them stronger,” she said. “Their wives would drop off their husbands and go to coffee together and talk about their stresses, so the gym became a thing for them, too. And for the members with Parkinson’s, their class became their community.”
She added: “We’d have men who could barely make it in the door without assistance, and now [they’re] playing kickball and jumping up and tapping [their] toes.”
Note: While there is no cure for Parkinson’s, studies have shown that consistent exercise, especially early in the disease’s progression, may potentially slow the the symptoms.
A Bump in the Road
Needless to say, the program was thriving, and the progress the men were seeing was remarkable.
That is until COVID-19 hit. By the fall of 2020, the program had all but collapsed, as many were scared to come to the gym. Schwab thought maybe her time coaching this demographic had come to an end.
Then, earlier in 2024, a good friend of hers was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and Schwab couldn’t help herself.
- She invited him into the gym and so it began again.
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Today, Schwab is rebuilding the program, although this time, she’s training people in a one-on-one setting instead of a group. She has also expanded to working with other older adults with various diseases, including her 77-year-old mother, who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney disease.
So far, so good.
Her mother, who also has Type 2 diabetes, has already improved her A1C (average blood glucose) levels and has significantly reduced her insulin dose since training with Schwab.
- “This demographic needs to be taken care of, and even more so as they get stronger. They always want to do more, and they do. We just make sure they do it safely,” she said.
The Big Picture
For Schwab, working with older and elderly adults with Parkinson’s and other diseases has become her purpose as a coach. Nothing is more rewarding, and it “brings life back to you,” she explained.
- “Seeing them on day one, feeling depressed and hopeless and dragging their feet, to skipping, yes skipping across the gym, is just priceless,” Schwab said.
She added: “They show up. They never give up. They work hard. This demographic is a great example of some of the most coachable people we come across. And it allows us coaches to see the real results of how exercise and nutrition can be learned at any age and humans can make progress no matter how progressive the disease is.”
Featured image: Lourdez Schwab
