Name: Mark Mueller
Location: Elizabethtown, PA
Website: www.muellerpersonaltraining.com
Member Since: 2015
Occupation: Personal Fitness Trainer
How did you hear about MFN?
I heard about MFN through David Lyons of the MS Fitness Challenege (MSFC).
How do you or your business help those with chronic disease/medical conditions or who need pre & postnatal care?
We educate and work with our clients to show them how proper exercise and nutrition can help them to manage and/or overcome their conditions and/or symptoms. We try to work closely with our client’s health care professionals to make sure that there is a coordinated effort towards improving our client’s quality of life. We work one-on-one with each client paying close attention to their perceived needs, goals and desires while continually assessing them for other needs they may not even know they have. We then help them to formulate new goals and then work towards achieving them.
What makes you different from all the other fitness professionals out there?
We are not concerned about being different from other fitness professionals. We are simply concerned with being the best that we can be and providing our clients with everything we possibly can to improve their condition. We do not use cookie cutter recipes in dealing with particular conditions and symptoms. Each person is unique as is their set of circumstances and this is what we address. It is important for us to be very personal and in tune with each client, We continually ask questions and monitor how they are feeling in an attempt to better understand what they are experiencing so that we can better attend to their needs and move them forward in a more effective and efficient manner. We are motivated by a passion to help and results driven. A clients small success, gratitude and smile are our rewards.
What is your favorite activity or class to participate in?
I love working with folks who have sadly bought into the suggestions that their condition will never improve and that things will never get better for them. I have worked with so many that had “given up” and who simply settled for what they had been told by others but who have since learned through working with us that there are ways to improve themselves. Watching these folks celebrate over the smallest victory, being encouraged by progress and gaining self confidence is worth all the work we put into them. Barry, a plumber with MS, was told he would never work again. He walked with two canes and spent his life on the sofa watching TV. His wife encouraged him to work with us and after twelve weeks Barry was back to work and without the use of any walking aids. This is why I do this!
What is one piece of advice that you would give other fitness professionals about working with special populations or those who need pre & postnatal care?
That is simple: Look at each person as an individual and invest yourself in them.
What type of community activities are you involved in?
We developed a community weight loss competition that we run each year in conjunction with our local Chamber of Commerce. Local businesses sponsor this 12 week event that teaches people how to live a healthy lifestyle. They are educated about exercise and nutrition and how to lose weight and keep it off. The long-term results of this program have been amazing.
We also host a 12 week MS Fitness Challenge once a year where people with MS are given free gym memberships, personal training and supplements. We work very hard to get the community involved through sponsorship and by educating them about how exercise and fitness can have an incredible effect on folks with MS.
I also spend a lot of time speaking on fitness at different community events, clubs and organizations working to raise awareness of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.
What is one of your favorite memories involving working with someone that has a health challenge or disability?
Connie has MS and has been confined to a wheelchair for over 6 years. Simple transfers were difficult for her and her husband to perform (i.e. getting in and out of the car). She had no strength and she had absolutely no muscular control of one leg. Her core was weak and she slumped in her chair. She believed that this was her destiny. Working with Connie has been awesome. She is a fighter with a positive attitude and we are working towards her walking again, even if it is with a walker. We believe in the possibility! Connie has progressed slowly but well. She can transfer by herself in certain situations now and she can stand up on her own behind her walker. The greatest memory…the day she took two steps behind her walker! Connie, her husband and myself were giggling like little kids!
What would you like to see change/develop/emerge in the future of healthcare and the fitness industry?
I would love to see professional healthcare workers and professional fitness trainers working together on a more regular basis.
I would absolutely love to see health insurance companies recognize the incredible benefits of exercise and fitness in the prevention, maintenance, control and sometimes cure of conditions and symptoms. I would like to see fitness trainers become viable healthcare providers so that a client’s insurance would cover personal fitness training. The benefits to everyone would be huge!
Fitness professionals are contributing so much to the health and welfare of our population and it is going unrecognized by our health insurance industry.
And what are you doing to make this happen?
We are working to develop a physician’s referral network in our area. It is a slow process but many of our local healthcare professionals are beginning to see the difference we are making in our clients and they are beginning to ask questions.
We are also working towards getting our HIPAA clearance and we are applying to insurance companies to become providers. Many health insurance companies have no idea what to do with us when we approach them so we need to gently direct them towards what we are looking for. We are blazing new trails and it is difficult and time consuming but we believe it is absolutely necessary and so we keep pushing forward knowing that one day we will break through!
What is your favorite fitness/inspirational/motivational quote?
Never say, “I can’t…because then you won’t.”
Anything else we should know about you?
I am the Director of Trainers for the MS Fitness Challenge.
I worked together with AFPA (American Fitness Professionals and Associates) to develop the certification course, MS Fitness and Wellness Specialist. This course is the only one of its kind out there. David Lyons (co-founder of MSFC) and I knew that it was necessary to develop this course so that all of our MSFC trainers and other fitness and healthcare professionals could have the best education possible for working with people who have this disease.
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