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Spandex & Wine
Spandex & Wine is a podcast for finding balance between being healthy & living a happy life. Hosted by Robin Hackney, a 23-year veteran in the fitness industry & wine consultant, this is a place to be our authentic selves as we have real conversations exploring wellness and all things wine! Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode.
Spandex & Wine
Stretch, Recover, Thrive: A Conversation with The Vital Stretch's Jeff Baker
"Does anyone remember when I did the super Nana flying act off the deck?" Robin begins this episode recalling her graceful tumble that tore tendons across her foot—an injury she believes happened partly because she'd let her mobility and flexibility routine slide.
Enter Jeff Baker from The Vital Stretch in Leawood KS, a specialist in assisted stretching who's on a mission to help people understand why stretching isn't optional, especially as we age. With a background in personal training and fitness challenges like Tough Mudders, Jeff noticed a pattern: his clients kept getting injured because they focused on only "half the issue." This observation led him to dive deeper into recovery techniques.
The Vital Stretch, founded by a chiropractic physician and physical therapist, offers a unique approach to mobility. When clients arrive, they undergo comprehensive assessments including 3D movement technology that identifies muscle imbalances. This allows practitioners to create customized stretching programs addressing individual needs—whether it's relieving tension, improving range of motion, or preventing injuries.
One of the most illuminating moments comes when Jeff clarifies the difference between flexibility (passive range of motion) and mobility (active movement capability). This distinction helps explain why someone might struggle with certain movements despite being "flexible" on paper. Jeff also demystifies fascia—the connective tissue network throughout our bodies—explaining how restrictions in this tissue can cause problems that ripple through our entire movement system.
For those dismissing stretching as unnecessary, Jeff offers compelling reasons why mobility work should be foundational in any wellness routine. Most importantly, he emphasizes being proactive rather than reactive: "Too often we're waiting until something's dysfunctional before trying to help with the function." Whether you're an athlete, office worker, or weekend warrior, this conversation might just change how you think about those "optional" five minutes of stretching after your workout.
Want to move better, feel better, and prevent injury? This episode offers practical insights for listeners of all fitness levels. Find The Vital Stretch on Instagram or visit their website to discover how professional stretching could transform your mobility.
Web site: The Vital Stretch® Leawood, KS | Assisted Stretching Near You
Instagram: @thevitalstretch_leawood
Facebook: The Vital Stretch - Leawood
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Hello and welcome to the Spandex and Wine podcast. I'm your host, robin Hackney, and I'm so happy that you're here. This podcast is a place for conversations about balancing a healthy lifestyle and being happy more specifically, happy hour. Together we'll explore all things wellness and wine. I hope you learn a little, laugh a lot and, along the way, know you're not alone on this balanced wellness journey. Ready to jump in? Pour something in your glass that makes you happy, because it's time for Spandex and Wine. Hey friends, it's Robin Hackney. Welcome back to the Spandex and Wine podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, so does anyone remember when I did the super Nana flying act off the deck? Very graceful, yes, and in the process I managed to tear the tendons across the top of my foot. Well, looking back, I honestly think that part of that injury happened because I'd gotten away from something really important stretching. I let my mobility and flexibility routine slide, I skipped yoga. Actually, I stopped teaching yoga altogether and I stopped doing the little things that really keep our bodies moving.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I was so excited when an email popped up from Jeff Baker from the Vital Stretch in Leawood, kansas, asking about being on the podcast. And you're going to love hearing what they do, how they help people stay flexible, strong and pain-free. And, fun fact, I actually once considered applying for a position with them. Actually, I did apply for the position and I had the interview and I canceled it, but you'll hear that too. This conversation is I think there's some light bulb moments in it about mobility and stability and why stretching is not optional, especially as we age, and it needs to start early. Oh gosh, you guys, it needs to start early. So lean in, maybe even stretch a little while you're listening, pour something in your glass that makes you happy and let's jump in. Well, hey, jeff, it is so nice to meet you. Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I was excited when you reached out because I don't know if Erica told you but I was interviewing or I was going to interview for your position, and then I decided I just don't know if it's going to be the right fit for me. I have so much freedom, I'm so much further South now, and so I was happy when your name popped up. That's great.
Speaker 2:Nice. Yes, she had mentioned you and it's just been really. I've been really busy trying to catch the studio up. So I was going back through the emails and I found it.
Speaker 1:I said okay.
Speaker 2:Well, let me reach out and see what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so glad that you did. Now, before we jump into the Vital Stretch and everything that you're doing, can you just give us a little more information and an introduction to you and your background?
Speaker 2:Well, I started off personal training. I've always been big into fitness, so I enjoy doing the fitness tournaments like Tough Mudders and Rugged Maniacs and all of those type of things. Nice, just the physical challenge. It just kind of drove me towards the fitness industry. Um, so I've taught classes at genesis cheese fit. Um, I work with exos right now, which is performance. Um, and I still do my own personal training on the side. I'm just a big one helping people, whether it be mentally or physically. So I have my certification through NASM, um flexibility, uh, and stretching coach, certified personal trainer, a couple other minor certifications, you know.
Speaker 2:So just kind of building from there, building from there, I think what led me to recovery is that, as a personal trainer, seeing so many people focusing on just one half of the issue, and it was always one injury after another so I just started doing more research into recovery, which is how I found out about this position.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, nice. So tell us about, okay, what is the vital stretch? Tell us everything about it. So let me see where to start. It's originally. It's founded by a chiropractic physician and a physical therapist, so they kind of combined some methods from those with stretching and they created their own specific method. So it's great for tension relief, overall movement, flexibility, mobility. So it's. It started out as I'm not sure if they meant it to be a franchise or if it was just meant to be a one-off but it turned into a franchise.
Speaker 2:It's expanded pretty quick now. So what we do is assisted stretching, so we help people getting to you know their actual movement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I love that. You know, when I was researching it as well, I heard also about the chiropractic position and then the physical therapy, and I have so much respect for those industries. I just think they're amazing people. So I love that it started with that background Because I mean, you and I, as personal trainers, we get a little bit of information about stretching and recovery. I mean, I don't know, you're probably you're a lot younger than I am, so it's probably even more so now, but when I went through my certification, it was just a little chapter, right, it wasn't that much. And you're right, it is so important. And I think that people don't realize that athletes yes, I agree with you, I think that they definitely get it, they have to have that time, but just the average person, just there, they have to have that time, but just the average person, just they're. They don't understand the importance of stretching after a workout. So take us through if someone were to walk in the vital stretch, walk in the doors um, what? What happens then?
Speaker 2:So, um, what we kind of pride ourself is to customize a specific program. What we kind of pride ourselves is to customize a specific program. So when someone walks in, that first intro session is all about assessment. So I want to find out what tension points you have, what pains you have, you know any injuries that you currently have or had had. Then we go into a postural and a movement assessment with what's called keynote tech, so it's just 3d technology and it creates a 3d rendering of you doing a movement and then I'm able to look at what muscles are underactive, overactive kind of what we would do in a four point assessment as a personal trainer. But the tech actually does the bulk of the work for me. Now.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:So I get to read it and I get the you know, and from there it's easy to say okay, well, you kind of have limited shoulder flexion, so I want you to refrain from doing, you know, heavy shoulder presses right now until we get your mobility right. That way it's a flow to what we're trying to do and you're you know we're not doing movements that are counteracting that. I'm kind of helping you prevent you get an injury. It's just all about assessment. That first one. So once we do the keynote tech and we get some pretty good information, we get them on the table and we give them a thorough stretch. You know, full body, we're starting, lower body, we work our way up and we're taking notes and with all this information combined I'm able to build you a stretch program that's specifically designed to get you from point A to point Z.
Speaker 1:Nice. So is this something where someone can have, like a monthly membership and they can come in once a week, or is it a let's see you for four sessions and then we'll see how you do?
Speaker 2:Well, we have packages and memberships, but it is month to month. You know, we try to make it super simple. We'll make our best recommendation as far as how many sessions per month you know we would like you to take in order to get you, you know, kind of flowing. And then we're, ideally we'd work you down to just maintenance, to where you're only coming in a couple of times just for maintenance. Right, we're getting more specific on homework. I would say, like certain self-stretches to do what my fascial rolling to do. I'm even going to incorporate some stability exercises, you know, with some resistance bands. Super simple, just because it's foundational. So it kind of varies depending on the individual. You know what they have time for. It kind of varies depending on the individual. You know what they have time for, what their physical needs are, but anywhere between, you know, one hour a month to 12 hours a month depends on the need.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, mm, hmm, yeah, and I love that. I think a lot of females do more stretching than males. You know you, typically in a yoga class you see more females. So I was happy when your name popped up. I'm like, okay, this is wonderful that it's a male and he's, you know, explaining how important it is to do all of these stretches and stay mobile and, like you said, stabilizing your joints. I think it's fantastic. When I was reading about the job description, it also mentioned something about so many hours in like not community service but community involvement. So what kinds of things maybe just local to Leawood, but then nationwide does the Vital Stretch do to get the community involved?
Speaker 2:Well, right now I'm going to attend the Thuris and ish Let me see flourish and life run. So it's a mostly involved around seniors. So it's a five K and a one K walk. So I'm going to be doing their, their pre-run stretches and warmup, you know, just to kind of get them mobile for the movements, and then I'll be there, just, you know, giving people short stretches for the entire race. We're trying to stay involved. As far as you know, if there's an event we want to be there, we want to. You know, explain the importance of stretching. I've been connecting with a few personal trainers at some gyms in the area and we're going to be doing some collaborations, you know, just to kind of get people aware. I think I'm even guilty of this. You know we're doing the bare basic of stretching, self-stretching. You know we're doing some toe touches, a couple of arm movements. We're like, yeah, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To your point, most of our members at the moment are females. I've taken yoga, I like yoga and the majority of the participants are female. So I think as guys we overlook it a lot. Notice the flexibility, unless you're an athlete, and then it's kind of part of the regimen.
Speaker 1:Right, right. And I don't know how many times I have heard someone say to me oh, I don't like yoga, I'm not flexible, I'm like.
Speaker 1:That's why you should do it, that's why, you, yeah, and actually the people that are really hyper mobile, they have to be careful in a yoga class because they could, you know, injure themselves that way too. Right, yeah, yeah, okay. So you said that it's growing quickly. I know, when I first looked at it, a lot of East coast. Is it just now spreading across the Midwest into the West coast or are you guys nationwide now?
Speaker 2:I believe we're pretty much nationwide. I just got off of a zoom call with the other managers of a training call, so it's even from when I got involved. It's a number of extra ones now. So I want to say every couple of weeks there's someone new on the call. Oh okay, there's another one popping up, there's another one popping up, Stretching itself. I think is getting more popular and they're starting to understand the importance of what your fascia do for the body. Even just saying fascia, most people don't even know what that is. So it's becoming more known that it's important and there's people just getting more involved with it Okay.
Speaker 1:So you said that most people don't know what fascia is. So can you explain what fascia is? And then also, like, what would you say to someone that's like, nope, I don't need to stretch? How would you explain the importance of stretching and coming to see you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll start with the stretching first. So, when it comes to any kind of movement, your body has to be able to flex, you have to be, you have to have a certain amount of flexibility. Well, let me take one step back. The difference between flexibility and mobility. People use them interchangeably.
Speaker 2:Flexibility and correct me if I'm saying this incorrectly would be for me to, let's say, I'm stretching your hamstring If I'm lifting your leg up for you, so it's a passive stretch and I'm able to get it so high. That's flexibility. Mobility would be you taking that same movement yourself through the range of movement, range of motion actively. So that's kind of the difference. So in order to have that mobility, you need some kind of control course, which is where stability comes into play. Yes, so there is a difference.
Speaker 2:But overall, you know, we work on helping people with their flexibility. So when someone comes in and they're saying, well, I can't really get my hand over my shoulder or it's pinching or this or that, I'm able to say, okay, well, let's kind of look further into that. You know, we're going to play around with some movements, we're going to get a good understanding, and then from there I can say, okay, well, let's do this and let's help you get here, which is why I'm adding the the stability part to it, because I do want to also make sure we're addressing mobility also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Well it is. I know it is kind of hard to explain. I always use like a, like a piece of chicken and you know you have the skin and then the chicken and kind of in between that slimy that's how I describe fascia, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, right, when I was going through training, the guy was explaining it as he said it's similar to pantyhose, if you were to just kind of slide it over. He said it kind of wraps over everything, but with this it's more with fas, what fashion. It's kind of woven into also, so it basically holds everything together. Um, let's say, let me try to use an example. So let's say we have someone who sits at a desk and they're, you know, they're hunched forward. What happens is they're, you know, their shoulders start to hunch, their shoulders start to roll forward, their heads start to protrude, and that's going to play a role in their lower, then their pelvic's kind of tilting, and it's what's called an upper cross-section, and then it could kind of progress from there.
Speaker 2:Um, I could say, foundationally, it could easily just be as simple as your front fascia is tight and it's pulling because you're, you're constantly inflection. So what we had, what a personal trainer would do, is they would see this it's all right. What we're going to do is we're going to do some back exercises. We're going to kind of, you know, pull you back forward, which is a great thing to do, but what happens is that creates tension on tension. So now you're just kind of stiff. So the flip side would be okay. We're going to do that. But we also still want to stretch the front fascia, the front net, in order to keep that balance between tension and compression. So you're not tight. So we still want to correct these postural dysfunctions, but we want to do it in a specific way.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Am I making sense?
Speaker 1:No, that's fantastic. It's fantastic and it's so funny that you say that because, like, I have been watching myself and I see myself slouching more and more, which I've been having lower back pain. I'm like I've never had back pain. What the heck's going on? And I have caught myself so many times recently, more hunched forward. I'm like, holy moly, robin, you got to open up, you got to stop doing that. So that makes total sense.
Speaker 1:I guarantee that there's someone listening right now like, oh okay, I need to straighten up so my low back will feel better. You probably saw me as you were saying that like rise up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to correct myself all the time. You know, I'm sitting at the desk and I'm like, okay, I'm lunching for it, lunching for it, lunching for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I also love that you are so young. You're so young and a lot of times people my age and some of my clients and older that's when they start with the stretching and they think, oh gosh, I've got to improve this mobility when really it needs to happen way into our twenties and then moving forward our whole life really. So I love that you've started this so early.
Speaker 2:That goes into being reactive versus being proactive. So too often it's we're waiting until's um dysfunctional to try to help with the function, or if someone's falling over before we want to work on their balance. And you know, um, flexibility and mobility, just your whole stabilization, those things are foundational. Um, even when I taught classes at cheese, fit and genesis, I would include these type of exercises in the class and there was youth people at the time. It was kind of I mean, they're not the sexiest exercises, you know, but they're, but they're foundational. So at the time people were a little bit like, okay, well, I've never tried this before, oh, this is brand new, and it's crazy to hear that from someone like, well, you shouldn't be doing these quite often, but brand new, and it's crazy to hear that from someone like well, you shouldn't be doing these quite often but they would come back the next week Like oh, I didn't know I could be sore hair yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's you know, it's, it's definitely important. Yes, yeah, and that you, you continue it. Like we had said before, it's just important to like put that in your, your regimen, okay. So, jeff, what haven't we covered that you would want people to know and then also tell everyone how they can find you.
Speaker 2:I think I pretty much covered it for the most part.
Speaker 1:We covered a lot yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. You know we do an in-depth assessment, assessment and we, you know, create a program specifically for the person, and anything that's customizable it's going to have the best results. You know, whether that be personal training, stretching anything, um how you could find us now that we have. You know we've been working on social media. We just opened May 20th, so okay, okay, that's a lot of moving.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of moving parts right now, but if you go to the vital stretch Leawood, you'll be able to see us on Instagram. Even if you look up vital stretch Leawood, we have a website, so we're definitely doing more and more. I'm actually about to post some, some stuff from the Instagram for the events we're doing. So we're doing about a few local events Slay, the Summer Fourth Friday in Olathe so we're definitely going to be getting around.
Speaker 1:Perfect, okay, well, I'll make sure I put that in the show notes as well, but thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule. I know you have a busy day.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you for having me. It was definitely appreciated and I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how all this unfolds.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely Well. Thank you, Jeff, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:No problem, thank you.
Speaker 1:All right. A big thank you to Jeff for taking time out of his busy schedule to be on the show. I loved learning from him and I hope you did too. So whether you're an athlete, a busy mom, a weekend warrior or someone that just wants to move a little easier, stretching and mobility work truly matter, and the team at the Vital Stretch is doing incredible work to make that more accessible for all of us. So if you're local to Leeweed Hances, go check them out. I put the link in the show notes. You'll be in great hands. Say hi to Jeff, tell him Spandex and Wine or Robin sent you, and if you're not, maybe this episode is your sign to roll out that yoga mat and spend a few extra minutes taking care of your body. That takes care of you. They are also nationwide, so go ahead and Google the vital stretch and see if there is one in your area. So thanks for listening and, as always, here's to feeling strong, healthy and just a little more flexible inside and out. Until next time, friends. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to follow spandex and wine so you don't miss an episode. To do this, just go to the podcast and click, subscribe or follow. Wherever you are listening, look for the plus sign or follow button. This is one of the best things that you can do for the podcast. If you'd also be willing to give a five-star review, that would be amazing and much appreciated. Lastly, please share an episode with a friend or five to keep the love going, and join the Spandex and Wine community in our private Facebook group by searching Spandex and Wine. Feel free to reach out to me at any time by emailing info at spandexandwinecom or text me at 913-392-2877. I appreciate you, thank you.
