INNISFAIL – During Mary Anne Message’s recent open mic show at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion Branch #104 she was able to sing, play the tambourine and dance on the floor all at the same time.
It is a combination of entertainment tasks the well-known Innisfail and area singer and songwriter cannot normally perform due to serious injuries she suffered in the distant past when she was a professional motocross racer.
“I had head trauma, two rotated vertebrae, dislocated shoulder, and it's been several years since that happened,” said Message, who found a program in Innisfail last fall that has finally given her relief from the pain she’s endured for years.
“The way he teaches the class helps me with my inner equilibrium, and it's helping me with my two rotated vertebrae and giving me more flexibility and more reach ability with my arm injury, like the shoulder cuff,” said the 59-year-old entertainer. “I would recommend anybody who's suffering from some kind of injury, a car accident or whatever, to come here and stretch to your own abilities.”
Message is one of a score of participants who meet three times a week - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - for an hour-long in-person and online session that begins at 10 a.m. in the Community Room at the Innisfail Library/Learning Centre.
They are known as members of the town’s Movers and Groovers, an initiative that began in 2018 and attracts up to 60 participants for an hour of professionally led exercises designed to improve health, fitness, day-to-day functioning, and quality of life.
Many of the Movers and Groovers are seniors but there is no age restriction. Anyone in the community can come out to the free program.
“A group of us originally just wanted to get together for fitness, so we took advantage of the spare room here whenever it was available, and we just brought in a yoga video or something and did it by ourselves,” said Movers and Groovers member Carolyn Beckwith.
“And then Brad came along.”
Brad Pawluik is a kinesiologist and exercise specialist with the Wolf Creek Primary Care Network.
He has been working with the Innisfail participants of the Movers and Groovers program almost since it began in 2018.
And every year during the holiday season program members, who don’t pay any fees, present him with a gift to show their appreciation.
“I feel very appreciated, like they showed today. I have people coming up to me all the time telling me their little story about how it's helped them, which is very rewarding,” said Pawluik. “There is a ton of evidence out there, through research and in the scientific community, to support exercise for staying healthy, physically and mentally, pre and post surgeries, like hip or knee surgery; absolutely important, preventing, managing and treating chronic health conditions.
“Exercise is absolutely valuable for pretty much anyone, whether they're trying to stay healthy or with any kind of health condition.”
Movers and Groovers member Shelley Warnock sees it the same way.
Warnock is a retired nurse, with the last 10 years in gerontology, and there is full confidence in what Pawluik is offering.
“Brad is very cognizant of the fact that as seniors, we have our limitations but we have our abilities,” said Warnock. “Everybody has a chair, so we all have the ability to hang onto the chair for our balance. So, he focuses on balance, safety, mobility, strength and stretching.
“I'm very aware of how good he is looking after seniors.”
