Revive Health's owner Alan takes a pragmatic approach to your health

keywords:

brain, physical pain, emotional pain, quality of life, rehab, grumpiness

summary

In this conversation, Alan Richter discusses the intricate relationship between physical and emotional pain, emphasizing how they are processed in the same part of the brain. He explains how physical discomfort can lead to emotional grumpiness and highlights the importance of rehabilitation in improving overall quality of life.

takeaways

• The brain processes physical and emotional pain in the same area.

• Physical pain can lead to emotional grumpiness.

• It's not your fault if you're grumpy due to pain.

• Rehabilitation can enhance quality of life.

• Staying active can help reduce pain.

• Understanding pain can improve emotional responses.

• Pain management is crucial for mental well-being.

• Quality of life is closely linked to physical health.

• Emotional responses are often linked to physical states.

• Awareness of pain's effects can lead to better coping strategies.

titles

• Understanding Pain: The Brain's Dual Processing

• The Interplay of Physical and Emotional Pain

Sound Bites

• "you can't help but be grumpy."

• "your brain's got grumpy mode turned on."

• "even doing some of the rehab work enhances quality of life."

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction to Revive Health

• 00:03:00 Alan's Journey to Hamilton

• 00:06:00 Expanding Services at Revive Health

• 00:09:00 Community-Driven Approach

• 00:12:00 Unique Services: Bike Fitting and Golf Analysis

• 00:15:00 The Importance of Recovery

• 00:18:00 Building Resilience in the Community

• 00:21:00 Future Plans for Revive Health

Transcript:

Alex Hobcraft (00:06)

Welcome everyone to Local Grit. I have the pleasure of talking to Alan Richter who is the owner of Revive Health on Dundurn which is a preventative prognostic and rehabilitative service, physiotherapy for physical injuries from sports and sadly as I turned 52, aging. Alan, welcome to the show.

Alan Richter (00:27)

Yeah, thanks Alex, thanks for having me.

Alex Hobcraft (00:29)

Yeah, I mean, we've talked before and ⁓ I find your business very, very interesting because you are growing the physiotherapy, but it's not just about physiotherapy, which a lot of people think that that's all that happens at Revive. So walk us through just the beginning of your journey, how you got started, and let's start there.

Alan Richter (00:52)

Yeah, the truth is this, the whole thing was an accident. ⁓ I never really have, I don't have any business background, never planned on starting a business. I moved to Hamilton about eight years ago. Grew up in a small town to the east called Toronto and then moved out west to Alberta for a few years, came back to Ontario, decided on Hamilton, we just fell in love with it.

And I was working here as a physio and I found the landscape to be quite shocking really about the of lack of quality of care that existed on the physio end of things. The way OHIP is modeled and other kind of funding models are, it's very hard to provide quality care.

And so working as a physio, I was kind of looking for a way to provide one-on-one care that was evidence-based, that had the patient's interest and needs in mind, creating unique treatment plans. And so we kind of started Revive. Even the name itself, I looked at it almost as like a protest sign. It's a great name for a clinic, but also, know, the sign of like Revive physiotherapy, which has now expanded out of the physio realm to Revive Health, where we have lots of different services. We have massage, have osteopathy, we have Pilates, we have personal training. And the idea behind it is that

Alex Hobcraft (01:32)

Okay. .

Alan Richter (01:57)

healthcare is not just going to see the doctor when something is wrong. This healthcare is something which happens in small actions every single day that build on each other and so what we tried to do was build a team that supports people's journey whatever they are. We also have a team of psychotherapists here as well because the mental health piece is very important for even our physical health and so it kind of built organically piece by piece out of that as we provided quality care and we saw what our clients needed and wanted we built on top of that.

Alex Hobcraft (02:23)

Yeah, I mean, that leads right into perfectly right into my next question, which is you do.

emphasize physical, mental, and social health ⁓ for each individual client's path. Is there one story that kind of stands out from, that embodies that kind of grit from an injury, where you're kind of, you know, brought down to being more stronger, balanced life ⁓ that you integrated with your service?

Alan Richter (02:51)

Yeah, so there's some really, really cool stories that we've actually had out of this space where people will come in with, ⁓ know, sometimes they're in a really rough shape. We've had people who've had like, you know, double Achilles tears, right? like, had a terrible injury to have, right? Where you build up from that where you and by the time they're done, they're in the gym, they're working out there, they do maybe more than they were before they got injured. We've had people with severe neurological issues, concussions that really have been nervous to leave their house, nevermind go into a gym, which is a very intimidating environment.

Alex Hobcraft (03:05)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (03:21)

We have this really nice care pathway with really supportive practitioners where someone comes in barely able to get off the treatment table and fast forward a couple of months later or longer in some cases, but then they're independent in the gym. might be running. ⁓ The best thing about a good or a successful rehabilitation pathway, guess, or physio treatment pathway is you end up better than you were before you got hurt, right? Because now you're in a place where you have the tools to actually hit some of those goals. One of the first questions we ask people is, what you... ⁓

Alex Hobcraft (03:36)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (03:51)

What are your ideal goals for movement? What do you see yourself? Forget where you are right now. If this wasn't going on, what would you do? And we try and build towards there. we've had a number of people. We ran a cancer class, actually. I was funded by the Myeloma Society, which created this really nice camaraderie between our group of people. And just the tenacity and the grit of these people coming in who've been through more than most of us, so that can even comprehend with chemo, radiation,

Alex Hobcraft (03:53)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (04:17)

off work, being socially isolated, physically isolated, and the way they

And the way they endure the fatigue or the pain going through chemo, coming in every week, twice a week doing exercise is pretty remarkable.

Alex Hobcraft (04:30)

Yeah, I can imagine. mean, myself, ⁓ I tore my rotator cuff installing a trampoline for my kids because those springs are just so strong.

Alan Richter (04:44)

Yeah.

Alex Hobcraft (04:45)

I ignored it for years, which was just the typical dumb thing to do. I just, I truly thought that no one would be able to help me. It's torn, that's it, this is the rest of my life. But going to a physiotherapist, I was able to, just to repeat what you're saying, I was able to have much stronger, in a very short amount of time too. It wasn't like I had to have years of rehabilitation. I'm not saying that's not the case for everyone, but.

But I was able to be better in a short amount of time. it's, it, it, I like that approach that you have, helping everyone for sure.

Alan Richter (05:24)

And better is an interesting term because very often, you we look at it in a black and white way of, you know, injured, not injured, right? But it's a continuum, right? And so better can be, you know, I couldn't, you know, reach over to the passenger seat of my car because my shoulder hurt. Now I can do that. Better could be, you know, I couldn't pick up my kid before. Now I can. Now my shoulder still hurts, right? It sucks to sleep on it, but I can do more stuff. And so our big thing is getting people to focus on what they can do, not necessarily what they can't do. And then also empowering people to move, like giving them that permission to move that they're

Alex Hobcraft (05:44)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (05:54)

not

going to damage it more. Rotator cuffs are interesting ones because most people over the age of 40 have a pre-existing asymptomatic rotator cuff tear. So it's actually normal to have a tear in your shoulder but not normal for it to hurt. And so with that information we say, look, this tear is something that might have been there already, now it hurts, but we're going to guide you through this process to make it better. So move more in ways that aren't aggravating and then build up from there. So the key is empowering, people permission to move and showing them that, hey, you know what, you can make steady progress.

Alex Hobcraft (06:02)

Mmm.

Alan Richter (06:24)

sometimes quicker than you expect.

Alex Hobcraft (06:26)

Yeah, and I mean, the care is important and it is important to have the diagnosis and what's going on and to have all that information, but really what sets businesses apart are

your staff and who you've hired. And you have physiotherapists, have osteopaths, you have osteopathy and osteopathists, osteopaths, that was hard for me to say, kinesiologists like Maya, you have Noel, and how does your team blend their expertise ⁓ to help everyday Hamiltonians push through rehab without sidelining them too much from work or hobbies?

Alan Richter (06:47)

your hats.

Yeah.

⁓ We have a great team like we're very lucky here like everyone here hangs out We get along really well work work is a lot of fun and we have great communication So we'll always get you know permission from a patient if they're doing both, know Physio personal training or massage just to kind of chat about what's going on But we've had you know, great success where someone's doing physio let's say for a back injury But they're also doing personal training right with we have a personal trainer Matt Suarez who's fantastic He runs all of our strength classes as well. So we'll say hey, know what? This person's got a back injury work that work out their back stay away from this kind of movement, but you

into other things and it's really what I said to you before is focusing on what you can do not what you can't because when we're hurt and we're miserable we focus on all the negative right but there's a laundry list of stuff that we can do that you know we're just not focusing on right like it's so common someone comes in with let's say a knee injury and I say hey have you gone to the gym like well no my knee hurts sounds like well have you worked out your upper body like wait I guess I guess I can do that right and so part of you know what we do is great communication between our staff knowing you know when to refer to the right and appropriate people

Alex Hobcraft (07:47)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (08:02)

And then also all of us being on the same page with that empowerment, with knowing what will aggravate something and what will make something better and just supporting people through that journey.

Alex Hobcraft (08:10)

Yeah, it's amazing how much you will focus on when I did that, you will focus on your shoulder. And it does become a bit of an excuse to not do other things. And so it's important to remember it's like, ⁓ wait, I have a hurt shoulder, but I do have two legs like in your example.

Alan Richter (08:26)

Exactly.

Alex Hobcraft (08:28)

No, that's a great philosophy to have. Now something else that you have, which is interesting, and I don't think many other physiotherapy clinics have this, is that you have a 24-hour gym, which your clients ⁓ can join, and it's right on site, so it becomes part of the family of services that you provide. so...

Alan Richter (08:39)

with you.

Alex Hobcraft (08:54)

⁓ How has this space become, you know, kind of a gritty haven for locals balancing their demanding jobs or with late night fitness goals? Because it's 24 hours, right?

Alan Richter (09:05)

Yeah, yeah, 24 hours. So there's two pieces to that. So number one, you know, when clients finish off their physio and now they're working out in the gym, our gym is very community driven. Everyone knows each other. It's fun. People are just hanging out. We have have puppies that come through, well behaved ones. But, you know, so because they've been through physio, because they've been through personal training, you know, everyone kind of knows everyone. So, you know, the physios will walk in, they know the staff. It's a friendly, open place in that regard. So it's a very safe and fun place to work out.

which is great for a gym because gyms can be overwhelming and intimidating and and bro and all the things that people are trying to avoid. So there's that piece of creating a relaxing environment that people want to go to because you know we all know work and life and family is stressful enough that gym being a place to unwind and be social is really important and the other piece is you know people are busy right like it's it's hard to to fit exercise in on a good day right and so if there's a place that you can go to you know after the kids are in bed or before you go to work.

Alex Hobcraft (09:53)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Alan Richter (10:05)

It's helpful. know, Hamiltonians work hard, right? You know, Ontario is a hard place to live. You know, it's expensive to live here. We have to work really hard to, you know, make ends meet in addition to, you know, family and friends and all the other things which take up our time. So we have a lot of people who come in at like 2, 3 in the morning who will work at, you know, on Fridge Street down the street here. There's a bunch of kind of, you know, jobs there that are going all night. They're starting shift work. So they'll come in at 2, 3 in the morning to

Alex Hobcraft (10:20)

Okay.

.

Alan Richter (10:29)

work out. They'll shower, go to work. Or people come in after shift work. You know, we're healthcare haven here as

So, know, nurses will come in after night shift, doctors will come in after night shift to get a workout before they go home. having that 24-hour access, just makes it easy. that's our big thing is staying healthy and those lifestyle changes that need to happen to be healthy are difficult enough that the goal is to just reduce the barriers. So it's the same reason we don't have any sign-up fees. It's the same reason we don't have any contracts, right?

Alex Hobcraft (10:39)

Okay.

Alan Richter (10:58)

The more barriers, whether it's financial, physical, time-based that are in place, the harder it is to be healthy, right?

we're all working out today for you know our 70, 80 year old selves and all those little kind of decisions we make along the way lead into that so the easier we can make it the better it is.

Alex Hobcraft (11:16)

Yeah, the battles with gyms is just ridiculous in terms of contracts, and that's something that I myself have experienced with a few gyms.

To me, it just seems putting the cart before the horse just because people want simplicity. And when you have a good experience being able to stop your membership and join your membership, that's flexibility that's realistic that ⁓ I think clients and customers want. They don't want these long-term, ridiculous ⁓ contracts. So it's important to offer that ⁓ to them. ⁓ Just shifting a little.

You treat acute injuries ⁓ all the way to chronic pain, and you tailor plans to keep people ⁓ moving and going, as you've said before. Can you share how this approach has built resilience in Hamilton's active community, like weekend warriors or busy parents?

Alan Richter (12:18)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So.

Hamilton's a pretty neat place because we actually have lot of clubs and groups here. have a lot of run clubs, there's cycling groups that go out. ⁓ There's lots of different activities that go on around. And it's like I said, keeping people active is really important. Even for just staying physically healthy when you're busy all week long and you have the weekend, you have so little time that when someone can't do anything on the weekend because they're injured, they like to run, they can't run, it's not just a physical effect, there's a mental health effect. There's that ability to unwind on the weekends so you feel you've gone back

Alex Hobcraft (12:42)

.

Alan Richter (12:50)

to work on Monday, you know, refresh. You know, in the summer there's a huge baseball league or softball league that goes on here, right? And it's such a big part of people's lives for physical, social, and mental health reasons. And you know, when they can't exercise because they're hurt, right? It actually affects your mental health, your well-being. And so being able to support people through that so they can keep doing the things that they love doing. And you know, I brought up the example of sports, but also let's say you want to play with your grandkids. Can't get on the floor anymore. Things like that which help enhance that quality of life. Keep them moving, keep them feeling, you know,

Alex Hobcraft (12:58)

Okay.

Alan Richter (13:20)

And it's funny, you mentioned before about when you were hurt, focusing on the negatives. So some really cool kind

Alex Hobcraft (13:22)

Okay.

Alan Richter (13:27)

of idea I think we knew about the brain is the part of your brain that processes physical pain is the same part of the brain that processes emotional pain.

So when your body

hurts, you're grumpy and it's not your fault. It's because that's just what your brain is doing, Your brain's got grumpy mode turned on. And so there's that as well. You're home on the weekend with your family, but you're hurt and like you can't help but be grumpy. Like your back hurts, you can't move, right? And so even doing some of the rehab work so you can stay active, so your pain goes down, just enhances quality of life as a whole. So we like to think that we're providing services across the board, including mental health services that just allow people to, you know, live their lives, to keep doing what they love and just keep them going.

Alex Hobcraft (13:39)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (14:02)

you

Alex Hobcraft (14:03)

Yeah, and I love how specific you get because you do a bike fitting. Here's me thinking that you just walk into a store and you kind of go up to a bike and you pick the one out, but you go from the very amateur bike to experienced cyclists and you give them a proper bike fitting. Explain how that process and how that helps them.

Alan Richter (14:08)

Yeah.

Yeah, so it started off with, know, I like to have fun and I like to do what I enjoy. And I like cycling and I like bikes and I like tinkering. So it started from there. You know, I asked myself, how can I do this at work? How can I make this happen? And I'm a big cyclist and I know what it's like to have the bike not be comfortable. It's an activity you love, right? And you can spend hours on your bike, but if you get home and your shoulder is just absolutely messed up and your back hurts, it just, takes away the fun of it. ⁓ And the bike fit you'll get in

store is very rudimentary. They'll fit the frame to you. They'll make sure it more or less fits. But once you start doing longer rides, you want to make sure that that bike fits you properly and it's not hurting you, right? And so what we'll do is it's about a two-hour appointment for a bike fit. And we go into kind of a health history, a movement history. We look into aches and pains that are happening off the bike, on and off the bike. If it's off the bike pain, we'll kind of give some exercises as we would with a physio appointment. Sometimes the bike is fine and it's just, you know, you need a little more strength or stability through a body.

part right and then we'll tinker a little bit but for the most part it looks more like a physio appointment but more often than not we put the bike on a trainer get you on it we have all sorts of cool toys we have a couple of lasers we have video we have all sorts of ways to analyze movement and fit we're measuring angles and we adjust the bike and tinker the bike just so it kind of fits you properly because bike prices are quite high and if you want a nice bike it's a real investment you know bikes will cost anywhere from like you know two grand to ten grand sometimes we've had you know twelve thousand dollar bikes in here so it's a significant

significant

investment both in just this thing that you're running around and your health and so making sure it fits properly it feels good and you can same thing

Alex Hobcraft (16:03)

Yeah, I has to, I I bought a bike recently, well, about two years ago, and I didn't realize that I needed, my body is just wasn't good, even though the frame size was right for me.

I needed a little bit further back, the seat to be a little bit further back than it was because I felt like I was hunched over. And even though I apparently had the right frame and the right size wheels, there was still more needed. so I didn't realize that you could get into that minutia, which will be the difference between a pleasurable ⁓ exercise and something you do for fun, as opposed to not being pleasurable.

Alan Richter (16:47)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It makes a big, big difference.

Alex Hobcraft (16:49)

Yeah.

And then you also have, ⁓ I mean, this is my forte, so you have a golf swing analysis, which is amazing. I love golfing. I have watched hundreds of videos. It's one of my favorite activities to do. so walk us through a golf swing analysis and ⁓ how you integrate that with the physiotherapy to fine tune either technique of getting more distance.

Alan Richter (17:02)

Okay.

Alex Hobcraft (17:20)

or preventing injuries ⁓ and just boosting overall performance.

Alan Richter (17:27)

Yeah, absolutely. So I don't do the golf swing analysis myself. I'm a terrible golfer, but our physio Adrian, who is phenomenal. He's, uh, he, he does all of our golf swing stuff similar to myself with the bike fit, right? It was just a way to have fun at work. Um, so we have a really cool setup. He's got this, um, huge net that he sets up and a piece of turf. Um, and with golfing, there's, there's a lot of rotation, um, with golfing, right? And most of our lives are spent in this forward backward position. sit at chairs, if we cycle, we're here, right? A lot, even workouts, a lot of them are kind of forward backwards.

Alex Hobcraft (17:56)

.

Alan Richter (17:57)

tight movements whereas golfing has a lot of rotation which we're

not super efficient at and so very often people have shoulder issues or back issues or hip issues just because they're not able to get that rotational strength and so that's just one piece of the whole swing like I said I'm not the one doing the analysis itself but what agent will do is take people through a full assessment same thing with the bike fit pain during or not during golfing what part of the swing is hurting noticing if a shot is slicing to the left or the right and why that's happening not necessarily an interest of you know improving a game

Alex Hobcraft (18:11)

. .

Alan Richter (18:27)

which ultimately it can, but I'm saying, hey, is there something off here that's making the swing not go, or the ball not go in the right direction? So it's really the same thing as saying, here's an activity that

Alex Hobcraft (18:37)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (18:37)

so many people are passionate about, but they don't always love doing it because it hurts, right? And so even though I'm more of the guy who sits in the golf cart, the people who aren't, right? Giving them that service to make them feel comfortable, feel like they can enjoy not dreading the experience. It's just kind of what we're doing and it's fun, right? It's a way to kind of keep things fun.

And then we're trying to start building a community around all that. Like we started doing group bike rides last summer. I know Adrian has some plans to do maybe some workshops. ⁓ Because for us, community is everything. And the more we can build a community with our members, our clients, the better it is.

Alex Hobcraft (19:12)

Yeah, no, I'm one thing I found interesting about golf swing is just not to harp on it too much because I love golf but just even going halfway is Will give you good results. Everybody thinks you have to have this full enormous rotational swing and the older I get the less I can rotate like that

And it's interesting to know that if somebody now analyzes your swing, they might start to notice that, you're getting like five yards more distance on a full rotation when you could just be going half rotation with less pain. And it is important to know how your body moves. And I think that that's what I find so interesting about it.

Alan Richter (19:32)

Right.

Absolutely.

Alex Hobcraft (19:57)

⁓ So we, again, so now we've talked about things that are preventative and we've talked about the physical things, but also you have massage and recovery. And explain how, you know, Ryan and Amanda, are two of your massage therapists, they offer massage and fascia stretch therapy. How do these hands-on tools support the mental toughness, which we talked about, but also

in long-term recovery ⁓ for people who are fast-paced, like who live in our city.

Alan Richter (20:33)

Right? Absolutely.

It's funny that the whole massage side of the business is pretty recent It's only been about a year or so that we really brought it on Because we're very much focused on the exercise movement active piece of the whole thing But you know when people work out they think that the that their improvements happen while they're lifting the weights And it's actually not true adaptations to exercise happen when you're resting when you're sleeping, right? So the recovery piece is actually more important than the physical piece The physical piece is the stimulus and the recovery piece is where or the magic happens, right? And so the goal when we add

Alex Hobcraft (21:02)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (21:04)

those services was to provide that for people. know, number one, getting massaged is really great for recovery. The mental health things that we have as well, the services of psychotherapists that we have is great for recovery. The facial stress therapy, which is actually done by Noelle as well. She's that's also part of that recovery piece. So we wanted

to show people that focusing on recovery is really, really important. And then there's that stress management piece, right? So people are more likely to get injured when they're stressed, right? Injuries get worse when you're stressed. You might have low back pain, but around Chris,

time when things get stressful with family and gifts and finances, back pain tends to flare up. So we wanted to provide a pathway for people where they could manage that stress in a safe, comfortable, fun environment, which is why we started adding that massage side to things. It's just because after focusing on exercise and moving for so long, we wanted to provide, you know, the other side of the coin, which is what we're doing here.

Alex Hobcraft (21:55)

Yeah, definitely. then this ties into a lot of what we're talking about. You have a great team, as you mentioned before. Do you look for a specific type of personality or grit in some of your employees? do you think that looking for that one thing has helped with your growth and success, would you say?

Alan Richter (22:21)

Yeah, I mean, think you're a business owner as well. So, you know, people are everything, right? And not just in terms of being enjoyable to come to work, but you you want people who just, they just get it, right? And so for the most part, you know, people who work here have either been through injuries themselves, they have amazing people skills, and they have that empathy. It's not something you can really teach, right? It's something you kind of just have where...

You get some gyms or some trainers where it's just like, don't care. You're work harder, work harder, work harder. Right. And it's, it's, it's, it's unsafe first of all, but also it's just, it's just not pleasant at most people. That's not what they're looking for. Right. You know, it's, hard enough to get up and get into the gym. And so I think the one thing that I look for the biggest thing when I hire is just, it's just that empathy piece, right. Is that people who understand people that if someone comes in in pain, you know, it's not just suck it up and, know, move through it. It's like, Hey, I know you're going through something. Let's, let's, let's take this slow.

Right? The whole no pain, no gain thing doesn't work, especially with rehab, right? Trying to, trying to something through a painful range of motion isn't going to help you. Now, sometimes things will hurt, you know, and sometimes things will flare up. ⁓ But when that happens, we were very communicative with our clients. You know, we chat to them, but hey, know, what went wrong? Let's, let's tweak your exercises. Let's change things with the next workout. all about working with people to find something comfortable and then finding what they're, what their unique needs are. You have to have a certain kind of empathy to be able to tap into that with people to truly listen.

Alex Hobcraft (23:20)

Yep.

.

Alan Richter (23:45)

some stats somewhere when I first started working as a physio that most medical practitioners will interrupt their patient within the first 15 seconds of interaction. think what statistic that I

Alex Hobcraft (23:47)

Thank

Wow.

Alan Richter (23:56)

Yeah, which is kind of shocking. then you think back to some of your medical problems. I thought actually maybe. So that's one thing as well. So people who just they just want to listen, right? And they want to hear I'm, you know, we're more interested in what people have to say when they come in and their individual story, then that hands on assessment when you know how strong are you because we're gonna work on that stuff. But you know, what are your roles? What makes you tick? What makes things hurt more? What makes things hurt less? Right? Are you what kind of job do you have? Right? These are the questions we're digging into whether it's a new physical client, massage client, personal training client, any sort

Alex Hobcraft (24:11)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (24:26)

service we offer, even on the phone when someone calls in, we'll always try and dig into who the person is because ultimately that's what we're treating. We're not treating body parts, we're treating people, right? And I think everyone that comes here has that understanding.

Alex Hobcraft (24:35)

Yeah, no.

Yeah, no, it's the same thing. It's just like, yeah, you know, that we own Footprints Music and funny story, like when we started, we had three kids and they were all under 10 and we would bring them to job interviews of people who were hiring. And we would know right away if the person didn't look at or interact with our child when they're teaching children, we're not hiring you.

Alan Richter (24:59)

Yeah, that's a good test.

That's a great test. like that.

Alex Hobcraft (25:06)

And it kind of just happened out of just circumstance. We just ended up bringing our kids because we just didn't have any care at that particular moment. it says a lot when you have staff that really care and, as you said, want to teach and learn and make that person's life better. It just makes your business better, for sure. I'm total proponent of that. ⁓ So you mentioned about you're doing some bike. ⁓

Alan Richter (25:24)

Yeah.

Alex Hobcraft (25:36)

⁓ kind of collaborations with some bike ⁓ organizations and some golf organizations. What's the future of Revive? Where do see that you started with just, I believe, just one little store and now you have almost the whole block, which is amazing and it's just this hub of health and wellness and I love it.

Alan Richter (25:57)

Yeah, that's the million dollar question of what's next. We actually had a big meeting about it last week where we want to go from here because we've great staff, we've got great practitioners and I think the consensus among everybody, whether it was staff, we just really sent out a member of satisfaction survey too, just to ask people what they want and the big thing that came up was more community, right? The biggest thing people enjoy about the gym is community and we're in a great neighbourhood with Kirkendall as well, ⁓ but also people wanted to see even more

stuff and events. So I think we're going to be doing, you know, more group bike rides, maybe some group fitness events, group outings. We actually, funny after one of our group bike rides,

Alex Hobcraft (26:28)

Okay.

Alan Richter (26:36)

a few of us put together a group camping trip, we portaging for four days, which was a lot of fun. So I think we're just going to lean more into that and see, you know, we've got a great, a great kind of space here. We have private treatment rooms, we have great, you know, psychotherapy treatment rooms, which I'm in right now. The gym is amazing, the clinic's amazing. But we want to kind of build out from there to just build more of a sense of community, both directly in the

Alex Hobcraft (26:39)

.

Alan Richter (26:57)

Farqundale area, but also in the broader Hamilton area.

Alex Hobcraft (27:00)

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I wanted to start. And that's what I do love about your business is that it's all about community. I think that's the future of most businesses. I don't think you can just open a business and be hands off with your community. It's the reason why I started this podcast is because I wanted people to get to know people in the Kirkendall, Strathcona, Durand, and in Hamilton area to learn about them. ⁓ Alan, it's been great chatting with you. I really appreciate your time.

We always have great conversations. ⁓ thanks for coming on the show and I look forward to chatting with you soon. I hope we can do this again, because this was fun.

Alan Richter (27:39)

That would be awesome. That would be awesome. Thanks so much for having me. That was great.

Alex Hobcraft (27:42)

Yeah. All right. Have a great day.

Alan Richter (27:44)

Cheers.

Alex Hobcraft (27:49)

Welcome everyone to Local Grit. I have the pleasure of talking to Alan Richter who is the owner of Revive Health on Dundurn which is a preventative prognostic and rehabilitative service, physiotherapy for physical injuries from sports and sadly as I turned 52, aging. Alan, welcome to the show.

Alan Richter (28:10)

Yeah, thanks Alex, thanks for having me.

Alex Hobcraft (28:13)

Yeah, I mean, we've talked before and ⁓ I find your business very, very interesting because you are growing the physiotherapy, but it's not just about physiotherapy, which a lot of people think that that's all that happens at Revive. So walk us through just the beginning of your journey, how you got started, and let's start there.

Alan Richter (28:35)

Yeah, the truth is this, the whole thing was an accident. ⁓ I never really have, I don't have any business background, never planned on starting a business. I moved to Hamilton about eight years ago. Grew up in a small town to the east called Toronto and then moved out west to Alberta for a few years, came back to Ontario, decided on Hamilton, we just fell in love with it.

And I was working here as a physio and I found the landscape to be quite shocking really about the of lack of quality of care that existed on the physio end of things. The way OHIP is modeled and other kind of funding models are, it's very hard to provide quality care.

And so working as a physio, I was kind of looking for a way to provide one-on-one care that was evidence-based, that had the patient's interest and needs in mind, creating unique treatment plans. And so we kind of started Revive. Even the name itself, I looked at it almost as like a protest sign. It's a great name for a clinic, but also, know, the sign of like Revive physiotherapy, which has now expanded out of the physio realm to Revive Health, where we have lots of different services. We have massage, have osteopathy, we have Pilates, we have personal training. And the idea behind it is that

Alex Hobcraft (29:15)

Okay. .

Alan Richter (29:40)

healthcare is not just going to see the doctor when something is wrong. This healthcare is something which happens in small actions every single day that build on each other and so what we tried to do was build a team that supports people's journey whatever they are. We also have a team of psychotherapists here as well because the mental health piece is very important for even our physical health and so it kind of built organically piece by piece out of that as we provided quality care and we saw what our clients needed and wanted we built on top of that.

Alex Hobcraft (30:07)

Yeah, I mean, that leads right into perfectly right into my next question, which is you do.

emphasize physical, mental, and social health ⁓ for each individual client's path. Is there one story that kind of stands out from, that embodies that kind of grit from an injury, where you're kind of, you know, brought down to being more stronger, balanced life ⁓ that you integrated with your service?

Alan Richter (30:35)

Yeah, so there's some really, really cool stories that we've actually had out of this space where people will come in with, ⁓ know, sometimes they're in a really rough shape. We've had people who've had like, you know, double Achilles tears, right? like, had a terrible injury to have, right? Where you build up from that where you and by the time they're done, they're in the gym, they're working out there, they do maybe more than they were before they got injured. We've had people with severe neurological issues, concussions that really have been nervous to leave their house, nevermind go into a gym, which is a very intimidating environment.

Alex Hobcraft (30:48)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (31:05)

We have this really nice care pathway with really supportive practitioners where someone comes in barely able to get off the treatment table and fast forward a couple of months later or longer in some cases, but then they're independent in the gym. might be running. ⁓ The best thing about a good or a successful rehabilitation pathway, guess, or physio treatment pathway is you end up better than you were before you got hurt, right? Because now you're in a place where you have the tools to actually hit some of those goals. One of the first questions we ask people is, what you... ⁓

Alex Hobcraft (31:19)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (31:35)

What are your ideal goals for movement? What do you see yourself? Forget where you are right now. If this wasn't going on, what would you do? And we try and build towards there. we've had a number of people. We ran a cancer class, actually. I was funded by the Myeloma Society, which created this really nice camaraderie between our group of people. And just the tenacity and the grit of these people coming in who've been through more than most of us, so that can even comprehend with chemo, radiation,

Alex Hobcraft (31:36)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (32:00)

off work, being socially isolated, physically isolated, and the way they

And the way they endure the fatigue or the pain going through chemo, coming in every week, twice a week doing exercise is pretty remarkable.

Alex Hobcraft (32:13)

Yeah, I can imagine. mean, myself, ⁓ I tore my rotator cuff installing a trampoline for my kids because those springs are just so strong.

Alan Richter (32:28)

Yeah.

Alex Hobcraft (32:28)

I ignored it for years, which was just the typical dumb thing to do. I just, I truly thought that no one would be able to help me. It's torn, that's it, this is the rest of my life. But going to a physiotherapist, I was able to, just to repeat what you're saying, I was able to have much stronger, in a very short amount of time too. It wasn't like I had to have years of rehabilitation. I'm not saying that's not the case for everyone, but.

But I was able to be better in a short amount of time. it's, it, it, I like that approach that you have, helping everyone for sure.

Alan Richter (33:07)

And better is an interesting term because very often, you we look at it in a black and white way of, you know, injured, not injured, right? But it's a continuum, right? And so better can be, you know, I couldn't, you know, reach over to the passenger seat of my car because my shoulder hurt. Now I can do that. Better could be, you know, I couldn't pick up my kid before. Now I can. Now my shoulder still hurts, right? It sucks to sleep on it, but I can do more stuff. And so our big thing is getting people to focus on what they can do, not necessarily what they can't do. And then also empowering people to move, like giving them that permission to move that they're

Alex Hobcraft (33:27)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (33:37)

not

going to damage it more. Rotator cuffs are interesting ones because most people over the age of 40 have a pre-existing asymptomatic rotator cuff tear. So it's actually normal to have a tear in your shoulder but not normal for it to hurt. And so with that information we say, look, this tear is something that might have been there already, now it hurts, but we're going to guide you through this process to make it better. So move more in ways that aren't aggravating and then build up from there. So the key is empowering, people permission to move and showing them that, hey, you know what, you can make steady progress.

Alex Hobcraft (33:46)

Mmm.

Alan Richter (34:07)

sometimes quicker than you expect.

Alex Hobcraft (34:10)

Yeah, and I mean, the care is important and it is important to have the diagnosis and what's going on and to have all that information, but really what sets businesses apart are

your staff and who you've hired. And you have physiotherapists, have osteopaths, you have osteopathy and osteopathists, osteopaths, that was hard for me to say, kinesiologists like Maya, you have Noel, and how does your team blend their expertise ⁓ to help everyday Hamiltonians push through rehab without sidelining them too much from work or hobbies?

Alan Richter (34:30)

your hats.

Yeah.

⁓ We have a great team like we're very lucky here like everyone here hangs out We get along really well work work is a lot of fun and we have great communication So we'll always get you know permission from a patient if they're doing both, know Physio personal training or massage just to kind of chat about what's going on But we've had you know, great success where someone's doing physio let's say for a back injury But they're also doing personal training right with we have a personal trainer Matt Suarez who's fantastic He runs all of our strength classes as well. So we'll say hey, know what? This person's got a back injury work that work out their back stay away from this kind of movement, but you

into other things and it's really what I said to you before is focusing on what you can do not what you can't because when we're hurt and we're miserable we focus on all the negative right but there's a laundry list of stuff that we can do that you know we're just not focusing on right like it's so common someone comes in with let's say a knee injury and I say hey have you gone to the gym like well no my knee hurts sounds like well have you worked out your upper body like wait I guess I guess I can do that right and so part of you know what we do is great communication between our staff knowing you know when to refer to the right and appropriate people

Alex Hobcraft (35:31)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (35:45)

And then also all of us being on the same page with that empowerment, with knowing what will aggravate something and what will make something better and just supporting people through that journey.

Alex Hobcraft (35:53)

Yeah, it's amazing how much you will focus on when I did that, you will focus on your shoulder. And it does become a bit of an excuse to not do other things. And so it's important to remember it's like, ⁓ wait, I have a hurt shoulder, but I do have two legs like in your example.

Alan Richter (36:10)

Exactly.

Alex Hobcraft (36:12)

No, that's a great philosophy to have. Now something else that you have, which is interesting, and I don't think many other physiotherapy clinics have this, is that you have a 24-hour gym, which your clients ⁓ can join, and it's right on site, so it becomes part of the family of services that you provide. so...

Alan Richter (36:22)

with you.

Alex Hobcraft (36:37)

⁓ How has this space become, you know, kind of a gritty haven for locals balancing their demanding jobs or with late night fitness goals? Because it's 24 hours, right?

Alan Richter (36:49)

Yeah, yeah, 24 hours. So there's two pieces to that. So number one, you know, when clients finish off their physio and now they're working out in the gym, our gym is very community driven. Everyone knows each other. It's fun. People are just hanging out. We have have puppies that come through, well behaved ones. But, you know, so because they've been through physio, because they've been through personal training, you know, everyone kind of knows everyone. So, you know, the physios will walk in, they know the staff. It's a friendly, open place in that regard. So it's a very safe and fun place to work out.

which is great for a gym because gyms can be overwhelming and intimidating and and bro and all the things that people are trying to avoid. So there's that piece of creating a relaxing environment that people want to go to because you know we all know work and life and family is stressful enough that gym being a place to unwind and be social is really important and the other piece is you know people are busy right like it's it's hard to to fit exercise in on a good day right and so if there's a place that you can go to you know after the kids are in bed or before you go to work.

Alex Hobcraft (37:37)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Alan Richter (37:49)

It's helpful. know, Hamiltonians work hard, right? You know, Ontario is a hard place to live. You know, it's expensive to live here. We have to work really hard to, you know, make ends meet in addition to, you know, family and friends and all the other things which take up our time. So we have a lot of people who come in at like 2, 3 in the morning who will work at, you know, on Fridge Street down the street here. There's a bunch of kind of, you know, jobs there that are going all night. They're starting shift work. So they'll come in at 2, 3 in the morning to

Alex Hobcraft (38:03)

Okay.

.

Alan Richter (38:13)

work out. They'll shower, go to work. Or people come in after shift work. You know, we're healthcare haven here as

So, know, nurses will come in after night shift, doctors will come in after night shift to get a workout before they go home. having that 24-hour access, just makes it easy. that's our big thing is staying healthy and those lifestyle changes that need to happen to be healthy are difficult enough that the goal is to just reduce the barriers. So it's the same reason we don't have any sign-up fees. It's the same reason we don't have any contracts, right?

Alex Hobcraft (38:22)

Okay.

Alan Richter (38:41)

The more barriers, whether it's financial, physical, time-based that are in place, the harder it is to be healthy, right?

we're all working out today for you know our 70, 80 year old selves and all those little kind of decisions we make along the way lead into that so the easier we can make it the better it is.

Alex Hobcraft (38:59)

Yeah, the battles with gyms is just ridiculous in terms of contracts, and that's something that I myself have experienced with a few gyms.

To me, it just seems putting the cart before the horse just because people want simplicity. And when you have a good experience being able to stop your membership and join your membership, that's flexibility that's realistic that ⁓ I think clients and customers want. They don't want these long-term, ridiculous ⁓ contracts. So it's important to offer that ⁓ to them. ⁓ Just shifting a little.

You treat acute injuries ⁓ all the way to chronic pain, and you tailor plans to keep people ⁓ moving and going, as you've said before. Can you share how this approach has built resilience in Hamilton's active community, like weekend warriors or busy parents?

Alan Richter (40:01)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So.

Hamilton's a pretty neat place because we actually have lot of clubs and groups here. have a lot of run clubs, there's cycling groups that go out. ⁓ There's lots of different activities that go on around. And it's like I said, keeping people active is really important. Even for just staying physically healthy when you're busy all week long and you have the weekend, you have so little time that when someone can't do anything on the weekend because they're injured, they like to run, they can't run, it's not just a physical effect, there's a mental health effect. There's that ability to unwind on the weekends so you feel you've gone back

Alex Hobcraft (40:25)

.

Alan Richter (40:33)

to work on Monday, you know, refresh. You know, in the summer there's a huge baseball league or softball league that goes on here, right? And it's such a big part of people's lives for physical, social, and mental health reasons. And you know, when they can't exercise because they're hurt, right? It actually affects your mental health, your well-being. And so being able to support people through that so they can keep doing the things that they love doing. And you know, I brought up the example of sports, but also let's say you want to play with your grandkids. Can't get on the floor anymore. Things like that which help enhance that quality of life. Keep them moving, keep them feeling, you know,

Alex Hobcraft (40:41)

Okay.

Alan Richter (41:03)

And it's funny, you mentioned before about when you were hurt, focusing on the negatives. So some really cool kind

Alex Hobcraft (41:05)

Okay.

Alan Richter (41:10)

of idea I think we knew about the brain is the part of your brain that processes physical pain is the same part of the brain that processes emotional pain.

Alex Hobcraft (41:10)

Okay.

Alan Richter (41:17)

So when your body

hurts, you're grumpy and it's not your fault. It's because that's just what your brain is doing, right? Your brain's got kind of grumpy mode turned on. And so there's that as well. You're home on the weekend with your family, but you're hurt and like you can't help but be grumpy. Like your back hurts, you can't move, right? And so even doing some of the rehab work so you can stay active, so your pain goes down, just enhances quality of life as a whole. So we like to think that we're providing services across the board, including mental health services that just allow people to, you know, live their lives, to keep doing what they love and just keep them going.

Alex Hobcraft (41:24)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (41:47)

you

Alex Hobcraft (41:48)

Yeah, and I love how specific you get because you do a bike fitting. Here's me thinking that you just walk into a store and you kind of go up to a bike and you pick the one out, but you go from the very amateur bike to experienced cyclists and you give them a proper bike fitting. Explain how that process and how that helps them.

Alan Richter (41:52)

Yeah.

Yeah, so it started off with, know, I like to have fun and I like to do what I enjoy. And I like cycling and I like bikes and I like tinkering. So it started from there. You know, I asked myself, how can I do this at work? How can I make this happen? And I'm a big cyclist and I know what it's like to have the bike not be comfortable. It's an activity you love, right? And you can spend hours on your bike, but if you get home and your shoulder is just absolutely messed up and your back hurts, it just, takes away the fun of it. ⁓ And the bike fit you'll get in

store is very rudimentary. They'll fit the frame to you. They'll make sure it more or less fits. But once you start doing longer rides, you want to make sure that that bike fits you properly and it's not hurting you, right? And so what we'll do is it's about a two-hour appointment for a bike fit. And we go into kind of a health history, a movement history. We look into aches and pains that are happening off the bike, on and off the bike. If it's off the bike pain, we'll kind of give some exercises as we would with a physio appointment. Sometimes the bike is fine and it's just, you know, you need a little more strength or stability through a body.

part right and then we'll tinker a little bit but for the most part it looks more like a physio appointment but more often than not we put the bike on a trainer get you on it we have all sorts of cool toys we have a couple of lasers we have video we have all sorts of ways to analyze movement and fit we're measuring angles and we adjust the bike and tinker the bike just so it kind of fits you properly because bike prices are quite high and if you want a nice bike it's a real investment you know bikes will cost anywhere from like you know two grand to ten grand sometimes we've had you know twelve thousand dollar bikes in here so it's a significant

significant

investment both in just this thing that you're running around and your health and so making sure it fits properly it feels good and you can same thing

Alex Hobcraft (43:48)

Yeah, I has to, I I bought a bike recently, well, about two years ago, and I didn't realize that I needed, my body is just wasn't good, even though the frame size was right for me.

I needed a little bit further back, the seat to be a little bit further back than it was because I felt like I was hunched over. And even though I apparently had the right frame and the right size wheels, there was still more needed. so I didn't realize that you could get into that minutia, which will be the difference between a pleasurable ⁓ exercise and something you do for fun, as opposed to not being pleasurable.

Alan Richter (44:31)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It makes a big, big difference.

Alex Hobcraft (44:32)

Yeah.

And then you also have, ⁓ I mean, this is my forte, so you have a golf swing analysis, which is amazing. I love golfing. I have watched hundreds of videos. It's one of my favorite activities to do. so walk us through a golf swing analysis and ⁓ how you integrate that with the physiotherapy to fine tune either technique of getting more distance.

Alan Richter (44:44)

Okay.

Alex Hobcraft (45:02)

or preventing injuries ⁓ and just boosting overall performance.

Alan Richter (45:08)

Yeah, absolutely. So I don't do the golf swing analysis myself. I'm a terrible golfer, but our physio Adrian, who is phenomenal. He's, uh, he, he does all of our golf swing stuff similar to myself with the bike fit, right? It was just a way to have fun at work. Um, so we have a really cool setup. He's got this, um, huge net that he sets up and a piece of turf. Um, and with golfing, there's, there's a lot of rotation, um, with golfing, right? And most of our lives are spent in this forward backward position. sit at chairs, if we cycle, we're here, right? A lot, even workouts, a lot of them are kind of forward backwards.

Alex Hobcraft (45:37)

.

Alan Richter (45:38)

tight movements whereas golfing has a lot of rotation which we're

not super efficient at and so very often people have shoulder issues or back issues or hip issues just because they're not able to get that rotational strength and so that's just one piece of the whole swing like I said I'm not the one doing the analysis itself but what agent will do is take people through a full assessment same thing with the bike fit pain during or not during golfing what part of the swing is hurting noticing if a shot is slicing to the left or the right and why that's happening not necessarily an interest of you know improving a game

Alex Hobcraft (45:52)

. .

Alan Richter (46:08)

which ultimately it can, but I'm saying, hey, is there something off here that's making the swing not go, or the ball not go in the right direction? So it's really the same thing as saying, here's an activity that

Alex Hobcraft (46:18)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (46:18)

so many people are passionate about, but they don't always love doing it because it hurts, right? And so even though I'm more of the guy who sits in the golf cart, the people who aren't, right? Giving them that service to make them feel comfortable, feel like they can enjoy not dreading the experience. It's just kind of what we're doing and it's fun, right? It's a way to kind of keep things fun.

And then we're trying to start building a community around all that. Like we started doing group bike rides last summer. I know Adrian has some plans to do maybe some workshops. ⁓ Because for us, community is everything. And the more we can build a community with our members, our clients, the better it is.

Alex Hobcraft (46:54)

Yeah, no, I'm one thing I found interesting about golf swing is just not to harp on it too much because I love golf but just even going halfway is Will give you good results. Everybody thinks you have to have this full enormous rotational swing and the older I get the less I can rotate like that

And it's interesting to know that if somebody now analyzes your swing, they might start to notice that, you're getting like five yards more distance on a full rotation when you could just be going half rotation with less pain. And it is important to know how your body moves. And I think that that's what I find so interesting about it.

Alan Richter (47:14)

Right.

Absolutely.

Alex Hobcraft (47:35)

⁓ So we, again, so now we've talked about things that are preventative and we've talked about the physical things, but also you have massage and recovery. And explain how, you know, Ryan and Amanda, are two of your massage therapists, they offer massage and fascia stretch therapy. How do these hands-on tools support the mental toughness, which we talked about, but also

in long-term recovery ⁓ for people who are fast-paced, like who live in our city.

Alan Richter (48:11)

Right? Absolutely.

It's funny that the whole massage side of the business is pretty recent It's only been about a year or so that we really brought it on Because we're very much focused on the exercise movement active piece of the whole thing But you know when people work out they think that the that their improvements happen while they're lifting the weights And it's actually not true adaptations to exercise happen when you're resting when you're sleeping, right? So the recovery piece is actually more important than the physical piece The physical piece is the stimulus and the recovery piece is where or the magic happens, right? And so the goal when we add

Alex Hobcraft (48:40)

Okay. Okay.

Alan Richter (48:43)

those services was to provide that for people. know, number one, getting massaged is really great for recovery. The mental health things that we have as well, the services of psychotherapists that we have is great for recovery. The facial stress therapy, which is actually done by Noelle as well. She's that's also part of that recovery piece. So we wanted

to show people that focusing on recovery is really, really important. And then there's that stress management piece, right? So people are more likely to get injured when they're stressed, right? Injuries get worse when you're stressed. You might have low back pain, but around Chris,

time when things get stressful with family and gifts and finances, back pain tends to flare up. So we wanted to provide a pathway for people where they could manage that stress in a safe, comfortable, fun environment, which is why we started adding that massage side to things. It's just because after focusing on exercise and moving for so long, we wanted to provide, you know, the other side of the coin, which is what we're doing here.

Alex Hobcraft (49:33)

Yeah, definitely. then this ties into a lot of what we're talking about. You have a great team, as you mentioned before. Do you look for a specific type of personality or grit in some of your employees? do you think that looking for that one thing has helped with your growth and success, would you say?

Alan Richter (49:57)

Yeah, I mean, think you're a business owner as well. So, you know, people are everything, right? And not just in terms of being enjoyable to come to work, but you you want people who just, they just get it, right? And so for the most part, you know, people who work here have either been through injuries themselves, they have amazing people skills, and they have that empathy. It's not something you can really teach, right? It's something you kind of just have where...

You get some gyms or some trainers where it's just like, don't care. You're work harder, work harder, work harder. Right. And it's, it's, it's, it's unsafe first of all, but also it's just, it's just not pleasant at most people. That's not what they're looking for. Right. You know, it's, hard enough to get up and get into the gym. And so I think the one thing that I look for the biggest thing when I hire is just, it's just that empathy piece, right. Is that people who understand people that if someone comes in in pain, you know, it's not just suck it up and, know, move through it. It's like, Hey, I know you're going through something. Let's, let's, let's take this slow.

Right? The whole no pain, no gain thing doesn't work, especially with rehab, right? Trying to, trying to something through a painful range of motion isn't going to help you. Now, sometimes things will hurt, you know, and sometimes things will flare up. ⁓ But when that happens, we were very communicative with our clients. You know, we chat to them, but hey, know, what went wrong? Let's, let's tweak your exercises. Let's change things with the next workout. all about working with people to find something comfortable and then finding what they're, what their unique needs are. You have to have a certain kind of empathy to be able to tap into that with people to truly listen.

Alex Hobcraft (50:56)

Yep.

.

Alan Richter (51:22)

some stats somewhere when I first started working as a physio that most medical practitioners will interrupt their patient within the first 15 seconds of interaction. think what statistic that I

Alex Hobcraft (51:24)

Thank

Wow.

Alan Richter (51:33)

Yeah, which is kind of shocking. then you think back to some of your medical problems. I thought actually maybe. So that's one thing as well. So people who just they just want to listen, right? And they want to hear I'm, you know, we're more interested in what people have to say when they come in and their individual story, then that hands on assessment when you know how strong are you because we're gonna work on that stuff. But you know, what are your roles? What makes you tick? What makes things hurt more? What makes things hurt less? Right? Are you what kind of job do you have? Right? These are the questions we're digging into whether it's a new physical client, massage client, personal training client, any sort

Alex Hobcraft (51:48)

Yeah.

Alan Richter (52:03)

service we offer, even on the phone when someone calls in, we'll always try and dig into who the person is because ultimately that's what we're treating. We're not treating body parts, we're treating people, right? And I think everyone that comes here has that understanding.

Alex Hobcraft (52:11)

Yeah, no.

Yeah, no, it's the same thing. It's just like, yeah, you know, that we own Footprints Music and funny story, like when we started, we had three kids and they were all under 10 and we would bring them to job interviews of people who were hiring. And we would know right away if the person didn't look at or interact with our child when they're teaching children, we're not hiring you.

Alan Richter (52:35)

Yeah, that's a good test.

That's a great test. like that.

Alex Hobcraft (52:43)

And it kind of just happened out of just circumstance. We just ended up bringing our kids because we just didn't have any care at that particular moment. it says a lot when you have staff that really care and, as you said, want to teach and learn and make that person's life better. It just makes your business better, for sure. I'm total proponent of that. ⁓ So you mentioned about you're doing some bike. ⁓

Alan Richter (53:01)

Yeah.

Alex Hobcraft (53:13)

⁓ kind of collaborations with some bike ⁓ organizations and some golf organizations. What's the future of Revive? Where do see that you started with just, I believe, just one little store and now you have almost the whole block, which is amazing and it's just this hub of health and wellness and I love it.

Alan Richter (53:32)

Yeah, that's the million dollar question of what's next. We actually had a big meeting about it last week where we want to go from here because we've great staff, we've got great practitioners and I think the consensus among everybody, whether it was staff, we just really sent out a member of satisfaction survey too, just to ask people what they want and the big thing that came up was more community, right? The biggest thing people enjoy about the gym is community and we're in a great neighbourhood with Kirkendall as well, ⁓ but also people wanted to see even more

stuff and events. So I think we're going to be doing, you know, more group bike rides, maybe some group fitness events, group outings. We actually, funny after one of our group bike rides,

Alex Hobcraft (54:02)

Okay.

Alan Richter (54:11)

a few of us put together a group camping trip, we portaging for four days, which was a lot of fun. So I think we're just going to lean more into that and see, you know, we've got a great, a great kind of space here. We have private treatment rooms, we have great, you know, psychotherapy treatment rooms, which I'm in right now. The gym is amazing, the clinic's amazing. But we want to kind of build out from there to just build more of a sense of community, both directly in the

Alex Hobcraft (54:14)

.

Alan Richter (54:32)

Farqundale area, but also in the broader Hamilton area.

Alex Hobcraft (54:35)

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I wanted to start. And that's what I do love about your business is that it's all about community. I think that's the future of most businesses. I don't think you can just open a business and be hands off with your community. It's the reason why I started this podcast is because I wanted people to get to know people in the Kirkendall, Strathcona, Durand, and in Hamilton area to learn about them. ⁓ Alan, it's been great chatting with you. I really appreciate your time.

We always have great conversations. ⁓ thanks for coming on the show and I look forward to chatting with you soon. I hope we can do this again, because this was fun.

Alan Richter (55:13)

That would be awesome. That would be awesome. Thanks so much for having me. That was great.

Alex Hobcraft (55:16)

Yeah. All right. Have a great day.

Alan Richter (55:19)

Cheers.