Strength to Change.

In this interesting piece Philadelphia-area personal trainer, Rina Kaplan, explains how she helped change a divorcing man's entire life by giving him the gift of strength. You can read it here, on Divorce Circus. Would you like to share information about what you know with our growing audience? Contact me at [email protected].

By Rina Kaplan

My new client, putting it as plainly and as truthfully as I can, was a wreck.

He was in his early 50s and divorcing in a highly contentious manner. His wife and he were engaged in an ongoing custody battle.

He was asked to leave his palatial suburban home, and he complied, moving to a small but very nice apartment in downtown Philly.

The stress of everything he was going through, along with a sedentary job that kept him in a chair all day, took its toll on him. About the only exercise he got was walking from place to place in the city. But one place he had never stepped foot in before was the gym.

His stress was off the charts and as with many people in that situation, he had put on weight. He had very high body fat. He was not obese (about 5’6″ and 170 pounds), but he had almost no muscle mass. As a result of these issues he was also diabetic.

His doctor was concerned about his condition, so much so he demand that my client hire a personal trainer to help right his ship. As it turned out, I was the professional that he hired.

Very soon I had him on a program of explosive jumping to raise his heart rate. I also quickly started him on a weightlifting regimen in which we utilized heavy weights, but slowly and in-control.

As a person who had never seriously exercised before, he was tight all over his body. So as part of my service to him I stretched him at each of our sessions. That was a wise decision since it helped speed up recovery time from his intense workouts, and also helped dramatically with his scoliosis, another precondition from which he suffered.

I became very attached to this particular client. It was hard to watch him struggle. His body was breaking down because he was unhappy on the inside. I felt like one of the reasons he was unhappy was because he was unhealthy.

I had to help him break this cycle.

The key to repairing him, I felt, was returning a sense of control to him. So much was happening to him that was beyond his grasp.

Through hard work, discipline and dedication to my process I wanted to show him that there was still much in his life that he could command.

Of course, there was nothing anyone could do to help him control his ex-wife or her unpleasant behaviors. But in a short time I showed him how he could make himself look and feel a lot better. He could be the cause of his own improved health and outlook.

With my help, he could give himself more energy, he could get more enjoyment out of life, and he could make himself more attractive to the opposite sex.

Well, needless to say in a very short period of time, we left the pudgy old diabetic behind.

Today, he walks around at a perfect 150 pounds. He has a very strong back that leads in two pleasing diagonal lines to a small waste. He sports tight buns that look great in dress pants or jeans. And he’s got real guns peeking out of short sleeves in the summer.

He no longer walks up stairs, he bounds up them two at a time. Why? For one, because he can. But also because he has a different outlook on life.

His improved body, health and point-of-view led him to a nice girlfriend and a serenity about dealing with his old issues. His ex-wife? She never became any easier to deal with. But now he accepts the stress she inevitably gives him more serenely. It’s not that he’s giving in to her; it’s that he has the strength to productively deal with it.

I like to think that the strong solid muscles I helped him build are just a symbol for the strong, solid man that now resides inside of him.