Darren Harper: Martial Arts, Rehabilitation and Wellness for Reach for Health

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Meehator. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, powerful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real life journeys inspire, connect and remind you that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Joining us today is Darren Harper. As Co-Ost Leader at Reach for Health Center in Daventree, he drives transformative rehabilitation programs for individuals with chronic conditions, injuries or disabilities. He oversees tailored physical therapy and exercise initiatives that promote recovery and long-term wellness, targeting issues like strokes, heart disease and diabetes. His work emphasizes accessible, evidence-based interventions fostering physical and mental resilience. Through community-focused sessions, he ensures underserved groups receive personalized support, empowering them to regain independence and improve their quality of life. His leadership helps the charity deliver impactful, holistic care across England. He has a wealth of information to give us today. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for coming on. Oh, pleasure. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. If you would, give us a little background on your journey to what you are doing today. So about 20 years ago, I got involved in general health and fitness. So I've always been to martial arts when I was 15. I've always wanted to help people. So I was learning kung fu and bits and pieces at the age of 15. Turn 17, I got interested in a film called Twin Warriors, which I had me got into a bit of Tai Chi. Tai Chi is very much holistic about wellness and well-being and trying to help understand your body and what you are, which led me into becoming a personal trainer and obviously a rehabilitation practitioner in the UK. And obviously 20 years later, I'm still continuing the same field and I love every minute of doing it because it's always different. It's unique and every day's a blessing. In some sense, it's about people being able to help and support. Yeah, and it's been basically developing from there really. Now, in anyone's journey, there's always challenges. Were there any challenges you faced that you had to overcome that helped you along the way? Oh, so I mean, my dyslexia was one level. So obviously at school, having dyslexia, learning about how to perceive things in the right sort of level. Obviously, my thing was when I was younger, I'd read a paragraph or a line, for example, and I'd probably add in extra words to make it sound differently. That's part of my dyslexia. As you start to work with that, and I think the martial arts helped me a lot because you're training the different parts of the brain to become reactive. So you have underactive lobes and overactive lobes. In this case here, it was about using my hands more and my legs more, coordinating more, and then developing different sorts of structures. That was one level, obviously, of me trying to understand how to slow things down from a mental capacity. So working with the public, writing down notes or workout cards or rehabilitation notes for people. Once you decided to focus on helping people, what was your pathway to getting there? What were some of the things that you had to do that taught you so that you could actually do this? Oh, so I became a gym instructor first, a level two gym instructor, and then I became a level three personal trainer, and I became what's called an activity on the furthest, which is level three, and then became a pulmonary specialist in level four. Over the course of 20 years of the amount of experiential gain in rehabilitation, my boss back then, obviously, and also my teacher was a physiotherapist and a back specialist, and he was covered in different areas of wellness and different areas of medical understanding of the body. In our location, which is called the Reach for Health Centre now in Daventure, we are based on rehabilitation. So we've always been into medical fitness and having him as my guide and obviously a teacher at the same time to be involved with the public to learn how to work in medical conditions, to support the teachings, I suppose I had from the courses that I did, to make it more realistic, more real, and to get more experiences, to understand what's what and why. That was what helped me a lot to understand how the body works and obviously how things are the way they are for. Can you expand and give us a little more information on how the Reach for Health Centre helps people stay fit and healthy as they age? Absolutely, yeah. We cover all areas of wellness and medical conditions and all age ranges too, from the age of 13 years plus. So some people might have like, neuro-muscular system difficulties, they could have like arthritic joints, they could have cardiac pulmonary like heart and lunges maybe, there could be things like diabetes, it could be weight loss. I mean you name it, we pretty much cover everything. Our clientele, we do definitely work on pulse prevention. Priority is quite a big factor as we know if it's day in and day out going forward. It's more recognised now because obviously the more people are more aware of how their structure life is. So we're trying to support that class that we do here or program developments that we do for certain people, depending of course on what they're trying to go for. With everything that you do, what's your day to day look like? Well at the centre, so it would normally be either consultations where we meet new people for the first time and obviously we'd have a sit down chat about a good half an hour to an hour. So to understand who they are, what their primary condition is, like why they're from here for, it could be like maybe hyperlip pressure, it could be arthritis, it could be anything you can think of. Then we can welcome comorbidities too as well, which would be secondary conditions and obviously help support program for them. We also develop on one to ones. So once that individual has had a consultation, for example at the centre, then we would book them in for another two sessions as a one to one to help create a program on a one to one basis for them. And to guide them through it so they feel happy and confident about what they're doing when they come down for work out. Then we have options to help people like to support that one to one basis, they definitely need it for maybe like balance development or they're not feeling really 100% confident they're doing with their program. Or we also have what's called an assistance scheme as well, which is when people who will book in to come and see us, it's completely free, but we'll be able to support them in their setting for machinery, which could be like bicycles maybe, cyclists, ferver cyclists, treadmills, resistance machines, whatever they feel they're still not really happy with. They could do most of the program themselves but they need that little bit of support sometimes a certain machine just to get the confidence in what they're doing. After that we have people who have classes that we run at the centre as well, we have a functional fitness class we run and that's based on different sorts of methodologies like cardiovascular, low impact circuit training, a bit of Tai Chi maybe, it could be stretching mobility, it could be force prevention, we cover that all in that functional fitness course or class that we run, which is ongoing for about the year. What we used to do was call the force prevention class, which is based on the Otago Scheme Training, we call it strength and balance, we do that three times a week. We have a Tai Chi class we run, Paul Murray class, working on lungs and we have a bit of Taysia. And pretty much we have a general gym structure, you could say people coming for regular workouts, you have your reggers that come every day, maybe come up on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or it could be depending on what they want to come down. And that's a very busy day, I'm going to lie to you, we have a lot going on. Yes, that's a very busy day. Now, you cover a variety of things with all the things that you do, is there a common thread that seems to just stand out? Yeah, I definitely would say force prevention, as in force is quite a big thing and that would be due to people from the age of 60 years plus from what we see here of course at the centre. It would be neurological, like a lot of stroke victims we have here, so like post-stroke victims and obviously depending on the course and the level of severity of the stroke course, we will definitely guide and support them and help them. And after they say they're 12 weeks of rehabilitation from the services, they obviously be discharged and they'll continue on with us. Or they'll come and see us before, as in they're going through the discharge process and we'll give them a bit of support and guidance to help them improve their process on their journey as well. Yeah, that's great. Now, with all the people that you deal with, do you have mental illness that will come in to be a factor? As we know, if people aren't feeling good about themselves, it can cause depression, anxiety. How do you work with people that have those issues? Yeah, so mental health is a really big thing for what we do at the centre because as you know, physical development of the body is corresponding to mental wellness in the first place. So as a human being, how we perceive things to be is a reflection of how we feel what something is. So we physically reflect that with verbal physical action. So when we're working with somebody, say it could be a stroke, it could be someone's working on saying, plume in there, they're strengthened, they're balanced with their particular condition. It's about trying to reinforce them to recognise that there's a goal going forward that we want to try and achieve to give them direction and give them drive and to keep the will go to keep pushing to achieve that goal. But motivational, to try and keep supporting them and to show them that what they can do is they keep pushing this direction, keep working on this exercise's movement, then they should be able to see a difference in achieving that goal. And it plays a big part in what they do going forward because it helps them feel more confident as well and more aware of what they can and can't do. Have you had people come in that had the attitude, well, I'm here, but I really don't need to be here. They're depressed. They've got anxiety, whatever they might have. You can tell they're going through some emotional issues because of the emotional issues. They're kind of self defeating. How do you get around that so you can turn that negativity into positivity? So normally it'd be showing them an exercise they haven't done before or let's say take a stroke victim, bless them, and obviously a stroke person. And they've obviously had one of their limbs, say the left to right limb, upper limb, is not that tick and they've got too much, not enough extension range in the hand. And they're just by working on that limb or that particular part of the body, allowing it to show a difference in what it can and can't do. Because sometimes they just need someone to show them something to give them a visual deception on what's going on. Say their hands in a fish shape and for a long time they've not been able to extend those fingers for any particular reason too. By working with those fingers, for example, trying to slow to expand them, at a pace they feel comfortable so they can actually see and feel the difference of that sensation. They see the fingers are physically moving. It's a great indication, say, okay, there's a possibility that we can get more movement going on the term and we can start to see progression. It's those sort of things to visually seeing the change of what's going on. So probably I'd say in this case experiencing a movement or an exercise they haven't done before and then seeing the change and saying, oh, wow, that can actually happen to me. I'm actually doing this as a possibility it might improve. It's those sort of things that we find change in my people's mindsets around to become a lot more confident and more given to want to do more and see more positivity in it. You work with so many people there and have had so many success stories. Do you have anything that just stands out to you? Oh, God, there's been so many. Can't think of the top of my head because we do so much down here. We're so involved with people and obviously we meet people in our diaries, for example, it's about, say, what, seven to eight members of staff that work in rehabilitation and then we'll flurry between different people depending on course on our diary structure too. I would say the center itself is one big level that we've seen a really big progression with because we've seen the change and the involvement and how we've evolved as a center to support more capabilities of course at one level. People who have spinal injuries, for example, I mean, here they have like, say, disability in walking, they're able to walk the end. We have got some stories here and some amazing stories. In fact, they're actually on our Instagram and on Facebook as well. And a lot of that was spinal difficulties of course. But there are just, there are loads because of how much we feel we work with and how much we work with as well, which is amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. Yes, that is awesome that you have that kind of success. Can you tell us your areas that you cover? We're based in Davenportry, which is obviously in the Midlands in North Phantomshire in the UK. So we can cover up anyone's welcome to come down. We have the villages supporting the town, Bourse, and obviously we have North Phantomshire generally. Anyone from people like from Kettering, even like from Walshshire about 45 minutes away from Davenportry, will pop in and see us and they'll come for regular sessions. And it all depends on the financial structure of the individual coming down, you know, what they're happy doing really. Sure, that makes perfect sense. Are you integrated with other programs or systems similar to yourself or are you a standalone entity? We're a charity, but we have different connections with different people, but they're their own individual charities, I believe as well. So we just support each other so we can signpost them to us or vice versa as well to help support where's necessary. It all depends on what that person needs or what that other charity will be beneficial for them, that individual, so they can support them by being here and vice versa for us as well. Yeah, that's great. What do you think is important that the listeners hear about what you're doing and how it's helping the community that you're in? I would say the key for what we do is rehabilitation, but rehabilitation comes in many different ways. It comes through physical actions, it comes through mental wellness, emotional wellbeing as well. I would say find out what makes you happy and try and pursue that and that's what I would say is a goal. If you're going through rehabilitation yourself, try and find out what you need to rehabilitate on, whether it's physical, whether it's normal on, whether it's mental, emotional, and try and keep active to the best you can because physical activity will make such a big difference to lifestyle and over wellness as well. Yes, I totally agree. Staying active is very, very important. As you're working with these people, helping them towards their goals, you must take great pride in seeing how their demeanor changes over a period of time. Yeah, definitely because they're growing and they're progressing because every time you go through an experience where you've had a conditional new change, you have to adjust and adapt to yourself mentally as well as emotionally how you feel about going on. So as they start to see progression or start to change themselves, they're starting to feel better about themselves generally, and it helps them to kind of see a difference. And they're changing their persona like you said across there to see that they can make a difference going forward and they can start to feel better. They are able to do more things, whether it's more activities or we call them ADLs, don't we, which are activities you're daily living. So a lot of people have these in which we obviously do, of course, like washing, cleaning or whatever it could be. When these bits get easy to do at home life, that's where you'll start to see a big progression with your capabilities. You know, go into like family events, maybe your social events, when they feel easier to do and there's less stress, less tension within us individually, then it's a big way, a way of our shoulders of course, because we can do more things and we can enjoy more about what's going on. So yeah, we do see a big difference in people completely because they're seeing more achievements without realizing it, which is really good. What kind of program do you set up for these people? It can be once or twice a week, three times a week, or I guess as many times as they need. After that is set up. How long does it last? Once they get to a certain level, does it end? Or do you extend it and tweak it so that they can continue it? Yeah, so that's a great question actually. So what we would normally do is when we'd create a program from day one, at the consultation, we've had a chat, we've seen where we want to go going forward. So they would have that program roughly, say between four to six weeks, and then when we review the program and do a whole brand new program. And this would continue every six to eight weeks roughly as well, because then we always want to keep seeing progression. We want to keep supporting everyone and stop the, I won't say the boredom, that's the wrong word, but the people need to see change, don't they, as much as they can do. Obviously, to the point they can, in a balanced sense, they're not seeing it too quickly, but knowing that they can recognize that it'll take a bit longer to see the change in this and this and this, where it's range of motion, or whatever it could be. What we also do is, although they've got programs written out for themselves, which they will follow through, individually, or on to one scheme like ourselves too, is that we will go and speak to the member or that person and we'll say on a regular basis like how are things going, how are you finding it, is this getting too easy, fancy more change, we add some new rooms into your program, and we'll start to tweak it and add things in, all to support them in their development, because the average human being starts to get stronger at about two weeks generally anyway. They're doing the same thing twice a week, three times a week. You'll see a big progression quite quickly if they're keeping that regularity of coming down at least here and then working at home as well doing bits and pieces too. So yeah, we do try and keep adding things into the program, maybe every week to two weeks, like a little exercise or repetition change here and there just to kind of keep it working, and to keep them driven as well, so they keep pushing forward, you know, to want to keep doing more and adding more to their programs, and to better themselves going forward. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. If you keep doing the same exercise, your muscles will get used to that same exercise. Yeah. So you have to tweak the exercises so they can continue to grow. Yeah, completely right. And that happens so quickly as well. It's always good doing the same exercise, but change the mythology behind it like the method scheme hasn't changed your rep count, change your resistance, change the structure of how you do it too. So say you're doing a pet debt machine just for example, and you're doing say reps of 15 repetitions on say, I don't know, 10 kilograms is for example, and you fill it working up with the first two or three sets, then you know you're in a good position. But let's say you go ahead two or three weeks later, and that's got a lot easier, which you put it up with the money by two, then you can even increase the repetitions by no but or you can decrease ending what you're trying to achieve long term going forward and add more resistance to it or create a super set of bets when you obviously have that pet debt machine and another chest exercise machine and you come back to it again. There's lots of options you've got as far as like trying to spice up the program you could say and make it more unique. Once you get a person to the range of motion that they're hoping to get to, you want to tweak it, you want to make it better for them to increase their mobility. What would your plan be to change it up without adding a lot more weight so they can still achieve mobility. And while they're doing that, they add a little muscle tone to it as well. Do you want to keep tone of flexible technically I suppose though? Ultimately it's repetitions because the more reps you do the more you work on the joint. So take the hinge being the elbow joint for example, you know we do bicep curls. So if you do a bicep curl with no weight, flat palm or fist in hand depending what you feel comfortable over time the slower you go, the more the muscles are going to start to work for longer period of time through contraction and elemphony. So they're going to essentially contract longer as well as contract to. Now that itself is going to start to make the muscles stretch longer and become literally more mobile for a period of time because the resistance is not there but the control is and the repetition will create the toning effect of the muscle fibers. Allow the capsule within the joint to become more mobile and more active as well. So I would say to keep that level of flexibility, range of motion and toning within a certain joint, either go very slowly with no resistance with the hand movement or start to do a bit more repetitions like high reps of 10 to 15 repetitions. Then do the other arm for example and then repeat two of three sets and that way there's no resistance as such with gravity or weight but there is the hand going up and down back and forth. Have you seen people that have been challenged mentally and when I say that it's more self esteem rather than mental illness yet it still affects people mentally if they don't feel like they can do something. Have you seen their attitude and just mental awareness change after you set them up with a program and then they finally believe that it's working for themselves. Yeah so from a motor function point of view when you move in the part of the body for example, so let's say they were able to do it first and obviously again they only get so far for example and they get a bit of like they can still move it but they're not going as far range as they would like to go I suppose you could say. So what we would do in that sense we would assist by putting a little bit of support behind the hand, can we up and back down just for example. It would give them the confidence to know that they can do it themselves they just need a little bit of push you could say here to help engage that motor function because it takes about a thousand repetitions roughly for stroke victim to obviously be able to gain sensory development and motor function to a stronger level of course. It's about knowing that person that knowing what they can and can't do and giving them that confidence to but yeah if you're motor no one's are slightly out of action because they run the active which what happens after you have a stroke on a particular part of the body because it's not being used. For a period of time and the speakers and active because not being able to be moved around you know due to the stroke of current if it's a different mental condition as well and let's say it's do with. Not so much a physical condition but say it's not logical and it's not allowing the transition movement then by doing support is the movement is a great way to train those motor no one's to say okay that's actually a good room to do. It's more natural for me it just takes a while for me to get used to it because all you're doing effectively is when you move the body muscles move but the only move because the brain says to move them so the brain says signal to the individual muscle that it then moves the muscle. When the muscle then moves on the tenant putting it actually moves the joint at the same time to the joints the last part to move is really more like brain to muscle and obviously into joint you could set. So we're trying to try to reconnect the opposite way around and go movement to brain so we're going to actually move the hands example here device kill and it's going to start to come to shoulder and then the neurological system to get used to that signal going over again repetition. And it'll start to create stronger Zen and that's the best way to support anyone really form like a you know motor functional development anyway. So being in your area as long as you have you get a lot of referrals from doctors nurses hospitals people within the business that know what you do and know that you're the ones to send them to. We do not so much hostels we have referrals from the GPS and the practice of our surrounding areas to and what have other people who are signposts to us from different areas in this field you could say like physiotherapists or diabetic nurses maybe anyone who feels like we can support them we will do but from the hostels not so much unfortunately we have more GP referrals all the public themselves who have been with us for years and years you know for different reasons they might have came across for medical for themselves and then explains their friends and family they come down here to improve their health their wellness their fitness and so forth and it could be a connection that way so it could be word of mouth as well but we do have a lot of specialists you know HCP's obviously do refer people to us as well. Yeah that's great now is there anything that I haven't asked or we haven't covered that you think is important that we do cover. I would say we've covered most of it to be fair be always says that if you think about generally for rehabilitation that just be mindful that it covers not just physical but obviously before it covers that mental wellness and that emotional wellness your emotional wellness is the biggest part to who we are and how we feel and how express ourselves is ultimately about. What we want to be as an individual person and expressions to key is what I would say the expressions to key to develop ourselves as humans if you get stress related issues like on a very emotional point of view is because the mental mind is not comprehending what's going on and that reflects physically in different sorts of ways so I would say. Be passionate and trust your feelings what I'd say try and be expressive but father sense and we have been taking you pretty much covered most things. Yeah I think it's a really good thing that you brought up the emotional part it affects the mind in so many different ways when it affects the mind it also affects the body with all that going on then they can easily talk themselves into a very bad mindset. How do you get that negativity out of their mind so they can start focusing on the positive things that they need to do in order to have a better future. Yeah I think that's a really good question actually about changing the perception some isn't it so American allowed them to be more aware of the other angle which they're not seeing from if you imagine like not that we see things from a narrow mind point of view but when you're one directional and all you can see is this is very hard to the external around it so. If you can see things from a bird's eye point of view you know as they say you're seeing from above that person so so and so is feeling this way because of this particular reason because of circumstances around that person afraid to what's happened now we can see. The things that were created in the first place to create that situation now for that person to feel low or heavy and let's say it's down to not being happy with a program they've got or the way a family member was you know it could be anything a physical mental thing or verbal that's made a fill off balance if we can explain to him or show him another angle now what's going on and say okay you're seeing from this point of view but try seeing from this angle because of this reason and why. Because we have to explain to people from a mental perception what's going on so they understand okay logically that makes sense why something is the way is for if you break that logic down to show another angle it starts to open in my more their perception will change and then we can more willing to accept another angle because when you're emotionally feeling low as much as you want to change those feelings emotions and we all do one of happy and positive and balanced the best we can until you have that direction or guidance or verbal physical activity or interaction it's not going to change. You need to have something to show you another angle and the perception what something hits and as an outsider it can be easier to do that because you're seeing from a whole different angle to you know we do have it down here quite a lot when people they like given and very like focused on one thing particular because they think that's going to help them heal them and it will of course to a certain extent but it won't achieve the whole goal so we have to logically say to him yes you're going to get this and this there so the excellent but don't forget about this and this too as well because the whole supporting mechanism of building bridge you need to have to create something. You just trying to create something differently from a different angle there but birds I point to view if you do a bird's eye view angle it makes a difference to how we see things to be. Yeah absolutely this has been great great conversation great information I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. No thank you so much for having me it's been great to meet you as well as so much about you as well Tony so thank you. Oh it's been my pleasure thanks again. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone who has a story to share tell them to contact us at why not me dot world. One last thing spread the word about why not me our conversations are inspiring guests. The show you are not alone in this world. .