My name is Kelly Quinn. I am a student at Texas A&M University. I did gymnastics for 13 years before I was forced to quit my junior year of high school due to injuries. I was a level 10 gymnast, with hopes of getting a college scholarship for gymnastics, when my back pain started getting to be too much. I went to a back specialist, and he told me my pain was “much ado about nothing”. I have an extra rib, and the transverse process on the L5 vertebrae is larger on one side than the other. He said there was nothing we could do, and if I did not stop, I would be in even greater pain as a young adult. So, I stopped doing gymnastics, but the pain did not stop. I could barely make it through a whole day of school sitting in a desk.
That’s when a friend suggested I go see his massage therapist, Lori Walter.
Since then, my back pain has become manageable, and I can live a normal life again. Lori and her massages and stretches have also helped me with other lasting injuries from gymnastics. Three years after I had stopped gymnastics, I had to have ankle surgery due to trauma from the repetitive pounding on my body. I had a hole in my cartilage, a floating bone from a previous fracture that I wasn’t even aware of, and a cluster of bone spurs in both the front and back of my ankle. Without the massages and stretches from Lori, my recovery time from the surgery would’ve been ten times longer. Lori noticed my muscles were not rebuilding, because they did not have the oxygen and blood supply to recover from the atrophy. Even years after stopping, gymnastics was still having effects on the way my body recovered from injury. I have many other previous injuries that Lori has helped me with as well. Without Lori’s massages and stretches, I can’t imagine what my life would be like. Every time I come home from college, I make an appointment with Lori. Luckily I have her Stretch for Life DVD that I can take to college with me and keep up with my stretches. I’m excited for Stretch for Sports to come out so I can work on stretches that are a little more focused on where my body is as an athlete.
