By Christina Orlovsky, senior staff writer
Nurses are so attuned to the body that it only makes sense for
them to work to improve it—both theirs and their patient’s. For these three
nurses, the combination of an interest in physiology, a love of wellness and a
dedication to educating people on the best decisions for their health led them
out of the hospital and into the health club.
Fitness for Moms
Having a
background in dance, Julie Tupler, RN, was always interested in the physical
form. She was also always interested in educating people—especially about their
health and well-being. As a nurse specializing in vocational rehabilitation, she
was able to do just that.
After
moving from Chicago to New York in the late 1980s, Tupler got even more involved
in physical education when she began teaching exercise at a local health club.
Once coworkers found out she was a nurse, they suggested she teach a prenatal
exercise class. That’s when Tupler’s new career began.
“I had
always wanted to work in labor and delivery, but didn’t want to work in med/surg
first. So instead, I became a childbirth educator,” Tupler said.
“I realized that childbirth education usually came at the end of pregnancy and only
prepared the mind,” she added. “Why would a woman do the hardest thing she was
ever going to do without preparing her body?”
With
this idea, Maternal Fitness was conceived. In 1990, Tupler started doing
one-on-one prenatal fitness classes in clients’ homes. She discovered a greater
need among people who couldn’t afford personal visits and created workshops: six
sessions, 90 minutes each, beginning early in the pregnancy.
Tupler’s
fitness technique incorporates the BAKS Basics, an acronym for Belly (belly
breathing and belly dancing), Abdominals and Aerobics, Kegels and Squatting,
Stretching and Strengthening.
“I teach
the foundation of the anatomy of the muscles they’ll be using during
childbirth,” Tupler said. “If you were going to run a race, you would want to
strengthen the muscles you would be using to run. For the marathon of labor, you
want to strengthen the abdominal muscles.”
Since
the Maternal Fitness program’s conception, Tupler has expanded her business,
creating the Tupler Technique abdominal exercises and a Maternal Fitness book,
CD and video. In Jan. 2005, Tupler published her second book, Lose Your Mummy
Tummy, which teaches women how to rebuild the muscles that that may have
separated during childbirth.
“My
exercises are really important for women’s long-term abdominal and pelvic floor
health,” Tupler said. “Pregnancy is very stressful on the body.”
Tupler
believes nursing prepared her well for her career in childbirth education and
believes the same about her employees. All Maternal Fitness instructors are
registered nurses who are also certified trainers or physical therapists.
“I went
into nursing because I love to teach. With everything I’m doing, I’m teaching,”
she said. “I’m giving women information on their body that really is important
for their long-term health. Isn’t that what nursing is all about?”
Fitness for the Masses
The life
of a nurse in a shock trauma unit is nothing short of stressful. Luckily for
Lynne Brick, RN, her personality thrives on stress.
“I loved
working in the trauma center. You never knew what to expect, so every day was a
new adventure,” said Brick, who started working in the critical care
rehabilitation unit of Maryland Emergency Medical Service System, the first
helicopter transport trauma center in the world, in 1978. “It burned a lot of
people out, but it gave me a bunch of energy.”
But
then, energy is what Brick does best. In 1982, she took her energized spirit and
dancing background out of the trauma unit and into the health club industry,
opening an aerobics business with her teacher/coach husband. In 1985, the pair
bought their first fitness club, Brick Bodies, in Maryland.
Since
then, Brick has become an internationally acclaimed fitness expert and top
aerobics instructor, and has produced exercise videos and consulted to health
clubs and fitness professionals.
Still,
Brick remains in tune with the nursing world, sitting in on the board of
visitors for the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
“The
future is bright for nurses because the role is changing and evolving,” she
said. “As diseases become really indicative of our unhealthy lifestyle, nurses
will begin to see the opportunity to work on the wellness side of health care.”
First,
however, Brick attested that nurses need to start to take better care of
themselves.
“Nurses
are so concerned with the health care of others that they’re not so concerned
with self-care,” she said. “They think, ‘I’m so busy, how do I fit it in?’ But
everyone has 10 or 15 minutes. It’s very important to do it for your health and
well-being as well as doing it to be a role model for your patients. You have to
make fitness a priority and put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help
others.”
Brick
explained that there are even ways nurses can incorporate fitness into their
busy workdays.
“There
are simple things, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator and parking
far away,” she said. “Instead of walking medications up the hall, do walking
lunges. Do wall squats—things to keep your back and legs strong.”
Outside
of work, Brick recommended visiting a personal trainer.
“All you
have to tell them is that you’re a nurse and that you have to move patients all
day, and they’ll design a program that will help you build strength,” she said.
Strength
training, Brick said, is the key to attaining fitness goals. And what is that
goal? For Brick, it’s simple.
“Everyone’s goal should be to be able to clip their toenails when they’re 90,”
she said.
Fitness for Life
Dottie
Drake, RN, had been a nurse for 33 years when, at 47, her husband left her.
“I was
at the lowest time of my life. I was obese, diabetic, hypertensive and facing a
total knee replacement before I turned 50,” she said.
That was
in 1997. Just the year before, Drake said, the Surgeon General wrote a report
stating that lack of exercise was just as detrimental to health as smoking.
Drake discovered that every disease she had could be attributed to obesity and
inactivity.
“I
always thought of exercise as something young kids do—I never thought of it for
health benefits. After 33 years of nursing, I had no clue that lack of exercise
is really the cause of all ailments that we nurses have to deal with.”
Drake’s
divorce and epiphany about her health kick-started a change that quickly went
from personal to professional. With the help of her daughter, Drake started
doing light weight exercises. Three workouts later, she was a changed woman.
But the
fire inside her to get in shape was quickly snuffed out by the employees of
every local health club Drake entered.
“I was
47, obese, hardly walking and very out of shape. It was obvious that they didn’t
want me there. No one was encouraging older, out of shape people to join a gym
in the late 1990s,” Drake said. “Had I not had the research, I would’ve given
up. Instead, I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this. I’m going to open a gym and
train people like me.’”
Drake
made good on her personal promise, learning everything she needed to know to
become a personal trainer in five months. She opened the door of the first
Fitness First for Women and Seniors in New Jersey in the summer of 1997,
advertising it as a 30-minute total body workout. Her business boomed.
From
overweight women in their 50s to 98-year-old seniors in wheelchairs, Drake’s
health clubs—now there are three in New Jersey, a franchise in Massachusetts and
another in Louisiana—cater to clientele that other gyms once ignored—people who,
Drake believes, deserve an individual fitness assessment and the opportunity to
better themselves.
“I have
never made such a difference in people’s health working as a bedside, hospice or
home care nurse as I have teaching people to be responsible for their own
health,” Drake said. “It’s our choices that determine how healthy or unhealthy
we are. We are living so much longer, but we’re not living with quality. I want
people to have disability-free living for as long as they live. I want every day
to be the best day. I see most old people sitting around waiting to die. I want
them to live.”
Through
her daily interaction with clients who have lost weight, gained muscle and
rebuilt bone, as well as clients with conditions like depression, multiple
sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and limbs lost from diabetes, Drake has seen
symptoms improve and medications become unnecessary. Personally, she is no
longer diabetic or hypertensive. What she still is, however, is a nursing
professional.
“I am
still a nurse, but now I practice wellness and prevention instead of illness and
disease,” Drake said.
Drake
hopes that her lifestyle change will encourage other nurses to look at their own
health just as they look at their patients’.
“As
nurses, you need to realize that you, and only you, can improve your health, and
before you can help others, you have to help yourself,” Drake said.
“Nurses—women in general—are caregivers. We got the message to love our neighbor
as we love ourselves. As nurses, we love our neighbors, but we don’t always love
ourselves. Now we have to love ourselves as we love our neighbors.”
© 2005. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.