At 7:15 one morning, just before Christmas 2000, Bob Dixon realized he was limping.
“I felt funny, but I worked with clients the whole day,” recalled Dixon, a personal trainer based at Sharper Fitness Gym in the River West neighborhood. “I went to see the doctor [in the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s emergency room] after work about 6 p.m.”
While Dixon, then 34, filled out paperwork, he suffered a massive stroke that left his right side paralyzed. He was suddenly transformed from the strongest man in the gym to a stroke victim who almost died.
Dixon’s reluctance to seek medical attention is common for people experiencing stroke symptoms, which include sudden numbness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side.
But everything Dixon has done since the stroke is anything but common.
After two weeks of physical therapy, Dixon realized his rehabilitation was “not about muscle-building.” He decided to retrain the left side of his brain, which controls the right side of his body, by learning how to play chess and doing math problems.
“Having a stroke is a brain attack,” Dixon said. “My muscles were fine, but my neurological system wasn’t.”
Dixon still isn’t actively exercising his right limbs. He vigorously pushes the left side of his body (he can shoulder-press 145 pounds). He maintains a daily effort to engage his left brain, the domain of logic, speech, analysis.
Dixon said his unaffected side is at “80 percent” of strength before the stroke. He doesn’t quantify his right side, preferring progress markers such as opening his hand (something he couldn’t do three months ago), touching his left shoulder with the right hand (not possible two months ago) or picking up a pen cap with the right hand (he did it this month).
Returning to work full time last February supported Dixon’s left-brain pursuit.
“I experienced some short-term memory troubles,” he said. “But I found I could remember people and their training routines.”
The left brain in Dixon applied a new sort of practical thinking to his clients’ workouts. Rather than hitting the weights or cardio machines, his regulars are routinely observed pushing boxes of weights across a gym floor, skipping a heavy jump rope or doing the “bear crawl” on all fours. Those drills, never in the same order, might be followed by the thigh-burning scorpion walk (the bear crawl with one leg up in the air behind you), crab walk (all fours with the belly facing upward), wind sprints or hopping on one foot.
The concept is to constantly challenge the body and its muscles. Dixon said his surprise-factor workouts heighten the training effect, an argument client Alec Coxe doesn’t dispute.
“I have lost 20 pounds with Bob in seven weeks of training,” said Coxe, a 54-year-old financial planner. “I didn’t get those results in three years with other trainers.”
Some drills, such as single-leg hops, are used to determine a client’s muscle imbalance.
“One of my main goals is getting you back in balance,” Dixon said. “Most people are burning calories at only about 45 to 65 percent of capacity because their muscles are only operating at 45 to 65 percent.”
After drills, Dixon moves to unorthodox weight-training methods. A bench-press barbell will have more weight on one side than the other, and Dixon might hold one side of the barbell as you struggle to push upward.
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Part of his success is an eating plan that stresses small meals of mostly protein and “green carbohydrate” vegetables. He doesn’t allow enriched-flour foods or alcohol except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when clients can eat or drink what they want.Dixon is volunteering with a Rush task force to develop a stroke-rehabilitation program for athletic trainers. Yet the 36-year-old former semi-pro basketball player (he played two years in France) is primarily focused on getting better results for everyone who signs up at his $80-per-hour rate (call Sharper Fitness at 312-944-4961).
“Once you have a stroke, you want to forget you ever had it,” Dixon said. “You want to lead your own life. That’s what I’m doing.”