Liz Bernstein, a coach at the Power Stretch Studios’ Delray Beach location,
stretches Megan Bell Taylor, the studio owner. The studio opened in November.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Lona O'Connor
Lee Taylor got his first power stretching session in New Jersey in May. He was running out of options for pain relief from spinal stenosis and he was willing to try anything that might ward off surgery.
“I did it for an hour with one of the stretch coaches and absolutely loved it,” said Taylor, a commodities broker. “I signed up for a 10-pack of sessions. That was mid-May. By mid-June, I was talking to Kika about opening a studio in Florida.”
Kika DuBose, an actor and dancer, had launched three Power Stretch studios in New York and New Jersey, where power stretching coaches use her “Kika method” of stretching tight muscles while clients relax.
Taylor and DuBose worked out an agreement. Taylor and his wife, Megan Bell Taylor, scouted locations in Delray Beach, where they had visited friends.
In August, a few blocks north of Atlantic Avenue, they discovered a mint-green house with a separate small building in the back. They moved into the house and outfitted the studio with a big exercise mat and large exercise balls. “I’m so optimistic about power stretching that I made my agreement for the entire state of Florida,” Taylor said. “Meg saw the excitement in my eyes when I told her — she’s seen how much pain I’ve gone through — and she was ready.”
“Usually, he starts something and then after a couple of weeks he doesn’t want to do it anymore,” said Megan, who runs the newly opened Power Stretch studio in downtown Delray Beach. “He really took to this 100 percent.”
She hired and trained four stretching coaches and opened the Power Stretch studio in November.
The target demographic for power stretching is men, who tend to be tighter than women. Both sexes often relegate stretching to a few minutes before or after other forms of exercise, said Megan Bell Taylor.
Power stretching makes mindful stretching a central activity that improves other forms of exercise and gives an immediate sensation of relaxation.
Unlike conventional massage, power stretching does not occur on a table. The client sits on a spongy floor mat and the stretching coach measures how close the client can come to touching his toes while in a seated position. Then the coach places the client in a series of positions and helps him stretch neck, chest, hips and extremities. All the client has to do is breathe deeply in and out as instructed. Sessions are 45 or 60 minutes long.
“It was like night and day,” said Lee Taylor, who first went to the doctor after losing some feeling in his feet three years ago. “I felt taller and more flexible. My joints weren’t cracking.” Before he began stretching, his golf swing was getting shorter and he was often in too much low- and mid-back pain to walk for 18 holes. After power stretching twice a week with a coach, he recently golfed three times in three days.
Chris Gallucci, 31, a personal trainer and body builder, became a coach for power stretching as a part-time job opportunity. He has three bulging vertebral disks and because of his age hopes to put off surgery as long as possible. He had been getting massaged once a week, but “the pain comes back right away,” said Gallucci, who lives in Lantana.
After a few sessions of power stretching, he got relief from his back pain.
“He looked completely different, his chest was open, he was much more relaxed,” recalled fellow coach Liz Bernstein. Gallucci and his girlfriend, also a personal trainer, now power stretch each other at home.
When he started power stretching, Gallucci was less flexible than one of his clients, a 70-year-old. And now?
“I’m walking taller, my posture is better. It helped my back and hamstrings, big time. And I can put my socks on. Before, I couldn’t even put my socks on.”
Lee and Megan Taylor are considering opening as many as five future locations in Palm Beach and Broward counties, perhaps in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach. They are also considering demonstration sessions at golf clubs, as DuBose has done in the New York-New Jersey area.
“Delray is a fantastic place for us,” said Taylor. “You see a ton of people, older, younger, active, in great shape. We’ve made an investment in ourselves and in our future.”
The Power Stretch studio is at 334 NE First Ave., Delray Beach. Phone 562-5321. An introductory 45-minute session is $45. Normally, sessions are $80 for 45 minutes or $90 for 60 minutes. Package rates are available, too. For more information, visitpowerstretchstudios.com/delray-beach-fl/
Lona O’Connor has a lifelong interest in health and healthy living. Send column ideas to Lona13@bellsouth.net.
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