How Santha Dropped 8 Dress Sizes, Got Rid of Lower Back Pain, and Improved Sleep

Remember Santha? She won our client of the year award for 2017. And we did a quick blurb about her in that article, but today is all about her:

• How she went from a size 10, to a size 2, and lost 28 pounds of fat (she also gained a few pounds of muscle)

• How decreasing her lower back pain improved her sleep, and improved energy levels

• How she was able to improve her social life after decreasing the pain

• How she was able to get back to doing activities that she previously had to give up due to pain

So let’s jump into it.

But before you do, please understand that Santha’s plan was tailored to her. It may or may not work for you, and if you follow the wrong plan, it can actually do some damage, even when it brings someone else great benefit. There’s my disclaimer. But if you want a much more “sure thing”, that’s tailored to you, feel free to fill out this form, to see if you qualify to work with us.

And if you want to hear Santha tell her own story, she does so in the 7-minute video below.

Santha’s Background

When Santha just started working with us she was a 43-year old (that’s 2 years ago) mother of 2 kids, a boy and a girl. She also had a very busy lifestyle. Attending lots of events, singing, doing some charity work, and oh yeah, she had a regular job, too (as a teacher).

Besides that, she was previously very active. She enjoyed ballroom dancing, salsa, Chinese lion dancing, martial arts, and yoga. At the age of 28, she suffered a work-related lower back injury, and it never really healed completely. Despite that, she persevered, and still maintained all those activities. Until the age of 42. At 42, her back pain finally got bad enough that all those activities she loved to do (dancing, martial arts, etc.) had to stop.

Not only that, but the lower back pain got to be bad enough that it kept her up at night, so not only was she hurting, she was also not recovering properly, and not sleeping well. That caused a vicious cycle.

And other things that she tried for it, like just walking, resting and yoga didn’t really seem to make the pain go away.

Eventually, it got to a point where even just sitting or standing for long periods of time hurt her back.

As a result of going from lots of activity, to basically inactivity, she went from a size 2-4, up to size 10, and gained 28 pounds.

And granted – most people looking at her would not exactly think she’s “fat” (she was only in the 130-140 pound range). But it’s not about their standards – it’s about hers. She knew what she looked like just a year earlier, and what she was looking like now was unacceptable to her.

Her husband, Ivan (a client of the year candidate, in his own right) had already been working with one of our trainers, Peter for about 2 years before she came to see us, and he got great results.

Santha was always leery of strength training, especially as a woman, thinking it would turn her into Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Eventually, her husband convinced her to give it a shot, and she did.

So we set her up with our trainer, Brian, and off we went.

Her Program

After looking at how she was moving, Brian noticed some obvious reasons why she was injured, and kept getting re-injured. Of course, these things were only obvious to Brian, who has extensive experience in identifying muscle imbalances. The average person, or even trainer wouldn’t be able to identify these imbalances.

Here’s what Brian identified:

• Weak core muscles. And although martial arts and yoga challenge the core, if the core isn’t prepared to that challenge, it will make a person worse, not better. The core had to be strengthened in a progressive way, instead of just being “thrust” into activities like yoga and martial arts.

• Shoulder stabilizers were also contracting improperly, and in the wrong sequence.

• Overall strength was pretty low

So they got to work.

The first 2 months of Santha’s training were easy from a perspective of exertion. There wasn’t much muscular effort. That’s because when a person has a lot of imbalances, doing intense exercise will only make those worse, and create more injuries. Not what we wanted to do for Santha.

Instead, those 2 months were spent on corrective exercise. That is, correcting any imbalances that are present, and as you see from above, there were a lot of imbalances present in Santha.

During those 2 months, fat loss took a secondary role, to the more immediate and troubling issue: lower back pain.

After those imbalances were corrected, the amount of corrective exercise was decreased, and the amount of more traditional strength training was increased.

Now, we wanted to get Santha strength training in a way that carries over well to “real life.” So Brian had Santha doing squats, deadlifts, assisted chinups, etc.

This was Santha’s second phase of training: teaching her strength training basics, being very meticulous about proper technique, and the proper progression model (remember from my article a couple of weeks ago, that the most important part of an exercise program is the progression model – not the exercises themselves).

Then, after the lower back pain and sleep had improved, it was time to focus on fat loss more directly. So then came the third phase of Santha’s training. Now, Brian had Santha doing more high intensity interval training, and shortening the rest periods in between strength training exercises.

He had her doing exercises like burpees, sled push variations, ladder agility exercises, and wall ball smashes.

The purpose of this phase was to maximize the caloric burn during workouts. Phase 1 of Santha’s program (the first 2 months) was really focused on correcting muscular imbalances. But corrective exercise doesn’t burn many calories.

Phase 2 was focused on proper technique execution, and more progressive strength training. Which burns more caloires that corrective exercise, but still not as much as phase 3, which was focused directly on that.

And of course, there’s the “other side” of the fat loss equation – nutrition. Brian helped Santha design the proper nutrition program that fit her needs, and her lifestyle, but he acknowledged that by itself, there were still a few gaps here and there, so he referred her out to a naturopathic doctor, to identify specific nutritional deficiencies/imbalances.

Besides that, Brian was able to build an entire “health team” for Santha. It’s important for a personal trainer (and any professional for that matter) to know what they can and can’t do. The training of a personal trainer can only take them so far. We can’t adjust somebody’s spine, any more than a doctor can teach a proper deadlift.

To that end, Brian acknowledged that Santha would benefit from additional help, so he referred her to a naturopathic doctor, a chiropractor, and a massage therapist. Additionally, she had constant heel pain in her left foot, that never seemed to go away. Brian referred her to get orthotics, which she did, and the heel pain is completely gone now. As a result, her knee is much better, as well.

The Results

Here’s my favourite part: the numbers. Because, as Winston Churchill once said, “no matter how elegant the methods, occasionally you have to look at the results.”

So how did Santha’s numbers change from when she started working with us, to the end of 2017, when she got her client of the year award?

Here’s how:

	When She Started	End of 2017
Weight	133.5 pounds	112 pounds
Waist circumference	88.5 cm (35 inches)	71 cm (28 inches)
Hip circumference	98 cm (38.6 inches)	88 cm (34.6 inches)
Upper thigh circumference	58.5 cm (23 inches)	46 cm (18 inches)
Belly fat (umbilical skinfold)	22.5 mm	10 mm

How Her Life is Different Now

Numbers are nice, but they don’t tell the whole story. The whole purpose of the numbers is to quantify the qualitative – quality of life. Now that she had this amazing transformation, how is Santha’s life different now, compared to just a year earlier? Quite dramatically.

• The lower back pain that was keeping her up at night, and zapping her energy – almost completely gone. She now sleeps well.

• The activities that she had to stop doing because of her back pain and low energy – they’re back. She now goes salsa dancing, Chinese lion dancing, and ballroom dancing again. She’s back to martial arts, too.

• Before, the back pain, and low energy levels had really had an impact on her social life. She wasn’t really going out, didn’t want to be social, or talk to people much. Now that the energy is back, so is her social life. She goes out with her husband to different events, and parties, spends time with her kids, and in her own words, she can “smile again.”

• Does she still get injured? Sure. When you’re as active as she is, injuries come. But now, for one thing, the injuries are less severe, her recovery is faster, Brian makes the necessary modifications to her exercises, in a way that speeds up recovery, rather than slowing it down, and she’s back at it in no time.

• Oh, and of course, she’s back in her “skinny clothes.” She went from wearing a size 10, down to sizes 2-4.

If you’d like to have a similar transformation, and something just as thorough and personalized designed for you, fill out this questionnaire, to see if you qualify to work with us.