Fitness recovery is the latest health trend and taking the time to slow down plays an important role; after all, we perform our best when we feel our best. StretchLab, an assisted stretching studio with nearly 90 nationwide locations, recently opened in Woodbury’s Tamarack Village and understands recovery all too well.
At StretchLab, clients receive one-on-one stretch sessions with “flexologists,” StretchLab’s stretch therapists who train for 60 or more hours in theory, the muscular system and assisted stretches. Each assisted stretching session is custom-designed for each client using TRX MAPS Technology, a machine that identifies mobility, activation, posture and symmetry inefficiencies.
General manager Jason Hair says the technology tells flexologists all they need to know. “We put you in front of the technology, then on the bench and our flexologist, who has already seen what’s going on in your body, will start to work on your customized session,” Hair says .
The sessions, running either 25- or 50-minutes in length, feel like a combination of massage and yoga, but with more activity from the client and more athletic movement from the flexologist. StretchLab uses the proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) approach, where the flexologist holds the body in a specific position while the client contracts and relaxes their muscles, as well as teaching the client to breath properly during the stretch session.
Co-owner Blake Score has seen improvements in his own body after assisted stretching. “It feels athletic and I feel energized afterwards,” he says. For Blake and his wife Brenda, opening the east metro’s first StretchLab was seemingly a no-brainer. They've lived locally since 1999 … "[It’s] definitely home, so there really was no other option,” he says.
Blake, who worked in the corporate world for 30 years , and Brenda, an entrepreneur who’s owned A Farmgirl’s Dabbles blog for over 12 years, are both fitness and health enthusiasts, so StretchLab was also the right fit with their lifestyle.
Following the initial 50-minute session, clients are invited to the month-by-month membership, with the average membership lasting 20 to 22 months. “We don’t need anything too long term, but people don’t leave us,” Hair says. “Once we get people in to StretchLab, they get into a routine and it becomes habit.”
Hair says it's important to consult your doctor prior to coming in if you have an injury or are pregnant. “We aren’t here to fix injuries, but are there things we can help with? Absolutely,” he says. With StretchLab’s youngest client at age 11 and their eldest at age 74, StretchLab truly is for every body.
“We really are the family and community partner, we want to talk to anybody and everybody,” Hair says. “We want to listen to your story … [And] we will always be the complement to your story.”
