Meet January Member of the Month, Hugo Garcia.

Next time you see Hugo in the gym be sure to give a socially distant wave and hello!

MINT Yoga Instructor Kate Rivard combines 10 years of teaching experience, a passion for wellness, and a background in pain management to make her classes unique.

She’s practiced yoga since high school and has always loved fitness. She was a gymnast as a child and a psychology major in college. For her senior thesis, she studied how yoga can help in the treatment of disordered eating.

After college, she moved to a small town and started frequenting a local yoga studio. Eventually, the owner asked if she wanted to try teaching, and before long she began training.

She also worked at the Pain Management and Brain Injury Clinics at Womack Army Medical Center for several years and incorporates that experience with traditional Ashtanga yoga to create inclusive and interesting classes. She often teaches with a theme in which the whole class leads up to an arm balance or inversion, while offering plenty of modifications and alternatives along the way.

Her favorite yoga type to teach is Flow to Yin, which begins with vinyasa to warm up the body. The second half is all long-held deep poses (like pigeon for four minutes) to work deeper into the myofascial tissue. She’s also found this method to be very meditative especially during the pandemic.

Outside of MINT, she loves taking her road bike on the Anacostia River Trail to Kenilworth Gardens or enjoying a vegetarian meal at Shouk or Pow Pow. She is also a licensed massage therapist! 

You can check out her weekly wellness, mobility, massage, breathing, and recipe tips on her Instagram (@wellbeing_dc) or blog (www.katerivard.com/wellbeing). 

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Life is full of surprises. For most of her life, Ori was too intimidated to try group fitness classes. Now, she runs the show! Several years ago, an old boyfriend convinced her to try indoor cycling and soon she was hooked, thinking “oh wow, I could coach this!” 

Ori was crushed when she didn’t get the first gig she auditioned for. Fast forward six years and now she’s coaching cycling, is certified in TRX and general group fitness, and has taught at five different studios around DC.

“I think everyone’s relationship with fitness and movement is so personal,” she says. “Knowing that I was intimidated for so long, I really wanted to try to make it a welcome, inclusive and safe space for ANY body, no matter their race, body type, ability, or fitness level. I know so many people who have dealt with health issues and injuries (myself included!) and movement is such a powerful way to celebrate what our bodies CAN do, despite those hurdles. I love being able to help people do that.”

At MINT, Ori’s classes are challenging, diverse, and accessible. She’s always mixing it up. It might be entirely bodyweight one week and entirely tabata the next. She balances standard movements with funky, compound ones and makes sure to hit all muscle groups while providing plenty of options. Find Ori on the schedule on Thursdays teaching virtual Power Playground at 6pm. 

Ori continues to consistently learn and train to be the best possible fitness instructor she can be. When traveling, she takes classes in other cities. In DC, she enjoys working up a sweat in classes taught by fellow MINT coaches Braegan, Lindsay, Colleen, and Myke.

During the pandemic, she is missing leading rhythm rides, but has loved coaching Power Playground from her living room. Ori enjoys seeing people make the workouts their own, so don’t be afraid to grab a different weight or change up your form. “Being able to watch people discover the power of their own body is a pretty cool job,” she says.

Outside of fitness, Ori has a passion for volunteering, progressive politics, nail art, DC public pools, and lots and lots of Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee.

She is so excited to get back on the bike with the MINT cycling crew someday!

If you’ve ever felt tightness in your hamstrings, the typical advice you get from friends, family, and even well-meaning health and wellness professionals is to stretch them.

Well… if your hamstring is actually tight then this might be good advice to follow.

But what if it’s something else?

If you’ve ever felt tightness in your hamstrings, the typical advice you get from friends, family, and even well-meaning health and wellness professionals is to stretch them.

Well… if your hamstring is actually tight then this might be good advice to follow.

But what if it’s something else?

If you accidentally stretch a hamstring that feels “tight” due to a back problem – there is a very good chance you’ll make your condition worse.

This exact scenario happened to a recent client of ours (“Paul”) who came to us with what he thought was a “hamstring strain”.

Paul had been stretching and stretching his hamstrings – which he had been told to do by his chiropractor – but wasn’t feeling any looser. In fact… his hamstring even started to hurt the more he stretched – so he thought maybe he caused himself a strain.

Was he doing too many stretches? Or perhaps doing them incorrectly?

He made the smart decision to call us for help and came in for an examination.

And the first thing we asked him was…

“Where is your pain?”

Paul pointed to the back of his leg… but when he started describing his symptoms… turns out they actually started in his butt, traveled down the back of his thigh, and stopped at his knee. But on occasion – he’d also feel the tightness in his calf. And since doing all that hamstring stretching – even starting to feel pain!

Lesson number 1:

Your hamstring starts at your ischial tuberosity – otherwise known as your “sit bone” – and extends down to just below your knee. Since muscles and joints can’t actually refer symptoms (only nerves and sometimes fascia can do that) – feeling pain or tightness anywhere other than your actual hamstring is the very first clue you could be dealing with something other than a hamstring problem.

Since Paul was feeling symptoms in his butt and also down into his calf, we knew immediately that “hamstring strain” was NOT Paul’s problem.

The next step was to figure out where his tightness was coming from.

Lesson number 2:

Since he’d been stretching for several weeks already and was starting to feel more problems in his leg – the likely explanation was that it was coming from his back.

While yes… over-stretching can make you sore… and yes… stretching incorrectly can cause you discomfort… that wasn’t the case with Paul. He was still feeling tight, and now on top of that – pain.

All signs were pointing to a problem in his back.

Well now that we had our theory – it was time to test…

After several movements tests to Paul’s back – we were able to produce the exact same tightness AND pain he had been feeling in his leg. And with some different movement tests – we were actually able to ELIMINATE his symptoms temporarily.

Since moving his spine in certain directions was responsible for both turning “on” AND turning “off” his leg symptoms – we were able to confirm that he had a back problem – not a hamstring problem.

Pretty cool – right?

Paul thought so… but more importantly… he was glad to finally have some answers!

1. He stopped stretching his hamstring.
2. He started doing a different – and properly prescribed movement instead – that was designed to eliminate the symptoms in his leg.

We’ll of course need to continue working with Paul to make sure that his leg symptoms not only go away – but that they stay gone. Part of the process will be teaching Paul how to do this on his own… in case the problem ever comes back again.

Sadly, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a case like Paul’s in my office.

Lucky for Paul, he came to us early on – when his symptoms were mild. Basically – the nerves in Paul’s spine were starting to get irritated – and the result was a “tight” feeling in his hamstring. Nerves don’t like to be stretched – so Paul was actually making his problem worse by stretching and he didn’t even know it. Had he not gotten this addressed – the tightness in his leg could have progressed into full blown sciatica!

If you have any kind of ache or pain that isn’t going away on its own with natural movement or stretching – don’t try to figure it out on your own.

And as you learned from Paul’s case – not all movements are created equal. It’s possible you could look up a stretch on Google or YouTube and actually make yourself worse!

Don’t guess… TEST 🙂

And when it comes to pain during movement or certain activities – let the movement experts be the ones to test you and figure it out.

I hope you found this case study interesting – and maybe even helpful!

Pass it along to anyone you know dealing with “tight hamstrings” 🙂

Email info@mmsspt.com or call/text at 202 670 8874 for a free telephone consultation if you’re looking for help for yourself!

Trupti Mehta
PT, MS, OCS is DCs Leading Physical Therapist and Back Pain Specialist

Meet Kelly Tobin, MINT Yoga Instructor since 2011. When Kelly moved to DC, she tried yoga and loved moving through poses in sync with the breath and felt yoga was improving her life in many ways. She felt more calm, present and mindful as well as more comfortable with challenging situations. She wanted to learn more about the philosophy and roots of the practice and share it and so she signed up for yoga teacher training.

Kelly now teaches a few different styles of Yoga:

• Vinyasa Yoga – Kelly’s favorite, it strings together poses in an energizing flow.
• Restorative Yoga – Using props such as blankets and going slowly through reclined positions for about 8 minutes each to truly restore and access our parasympathetic nervous system and practice “being” versus “doing” in a deeply relaxing way.
• Yoga Nidra – A reclined restorative guided meditation, Nidra also helps you relax the nervous system and regenerates cells.

Yoga means “union” as Kelly shares, and is far more than time to stretch. It is about developing a deeper relationship with yourself, developing more self-compassion, self-acceptance and trust. Through that journey, we grow and learn to have more unequivocal acceptance and compassion for others.

Kelly has a regular meditation practice, which is another component of yoga. She tries to find time to meditate daily, for 3-5 minutes of deep breathing and grounding in the present moment. Yoga is not just about flexibility!

Beyond MINT, Kelly enjoys classes on her Peloton, outdoor happy hours, and hiking on the Billy Goat Trail.

You can take her yoga classes on Tuesdays 7:30-8:45PM. Kelly encourages newbies to try yoga at home – it’s a good time to try it during COVID – you can keep the camera off. Kelly is always happy to go over the basics a bit more for students new to yoga.

The clients at MINT are truly extraordinary,” Kelly says. “I have had a lot of amazing people in my classes as long-term students for almost 10 years at MINT now and I want to take this moment to thank you for bringing all that you do to this great community. You guys are very special! Hope to see you on the mat! Stay healthy!