Bend Into Balance: Blair Nicol, Co-Owner of StretchLab

In this episode of Bend Into Balance, host Adriana Mariño sits down with Blair Nicol, co‑owner of StretchLab Bend, to explore the often‑overlooked role of stretching in long‑term health, mobility, and vitality. Blair shares how bringing StretchLab to Bend was inspired by the community’s active lifestyle and a desire to offer a simple, effective way for people of all ages to keep doing what they love longer and with less pain.

Together, they discuss the benefits of one‑on‑one assisted stretching, injury prevention, recovery, and why mobility is foundational to healthy aging. From athletes and outdoor enthusiasts to older adults focused on longevity, this conversation highlights how intentional movement, consistency, and body awareness can dramatically improve quality of life.

Find StretchLab at 2838 NW Crossing Dr, Ste 110, Bend, OR 97703

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello, welcome to Bend into Balance. This is Adriana Marino, host and producer of this podcast. Today I'm very happy to be with Blair Nickel, who's the owner of the Stretch Lab here in Bend. Blair, thank you for being here. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and what brought you to Bend?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Of course, and thank you for having me here. So my name is Blair Nickel. I'm the owner, my wife and I are the owners of uh Stretch Lab here in Bend. Um, we have owned Stretch Lab now for about five years here in the area. Um, we wanted to bring something to Bend because the other businesses that I own have nothing to do with the city of Bend. And we wanted to bring something healthy, new, different, um, something that would really benefit the vast majority of the population here in Bend. And that's proven to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Great. How did you come to learn of the stretch lab? And why did you decide that it would be a good business venture for the city?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

So, my other one of my other companies that I own is a franchise development company. And we we franchise all kinds of different businesses. And during the pandemic, um, so in 2020, 2021, when we were all kind of sitting around, kind of wondering what to do, uh, my wife and I just kind of sat around and said, hey, what's we started another business, but something that that could benefit here in Bend. So going back to my other company, and the name of that company is called FranNet. Um, one of my jobs within Frannet is when we decide to franchise a company, our research team finishes the research, and I sign off on the companies that we're going to start franchising nationwide. Well, more of them was called Stretch Lab. And I was reading the notes and I'm like, what is Stretch Lab? And you know, what do they do? And I was kind of reading what they do and and how they do it, and I'm like, stretching, like, why would people pay for that? Can I just stretch right here on my own um for free? Um, and you know, I've kind of I've seen it in um some movies in some um some series on TV where people were getting professionally one-on-one stretched. I'm like, well, that's kind of cool. But as I was reading about it, I'm like, like I said, can't you do it for free? And so I showed my wife the the company notes and everything, and she said, that's genius. And like I said, at the time we were looking to start a business here in Bend, and she goes, Blair, I think that's it. So I'm like, okay, I'll look into it more. I'll start doing some more research on it. And then literally, probably six, nine months later, uh, there we were. We we were now the proud owners of Stretch Lab here in Bend. And we have owned the studio now for about five years.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Great. So what made you switch, you know, change your idea? What what what was what was it about the stretch lab that really made sense to you? And especially thinking of Bend.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, so Bend is a very outdoorsy community. It is a very athletic community. Um, we have all kinds of different population demographics here, but overall, everybody tends to be pretty active. There's a reason why we have so many physical therapy places here in Bend. Because we are so active, we tend to mess ourselves up. Well, one of the best things that somebody who's elderly, somebody who's active, if you're a professional athlete, you're an athlete in high school, uh, you name it. You're just an active individual. One of the best things that you can do for your body is to be limber and to stretch. And I don't think there's a person on this planet that would tell you that stretching is a bad thing. But most people have never done one-on-one assisted stretching. Like I said, most people just kind of stretch on their own, maybe do it for a few minutes. Yeah, it's beneficial, but it's not nearly as beneficial as doing it one-on-one with somebody who's what we call a flexologist in our studio who will spend a half hour to an hour with you on physically stretching certain muscle groups or a full body stretch. And so I say stretching is or stretch lab is for anybody and any body, right? Got it. So it it affects and helps out everybody out there. Now, our core demographic is usually about 45, 50 years of age and older. Uh, I would say our oldest member, oh, he's probably in his 80s, kind of mid 80s or so. You know, he just wants to be able to tie his shoes and to be able to pick up his grandchildren, right? But our core customers are, like I said, kind of that 50 to 65, 50 to 70 year age range. They are playing golf, they are playing pickleball, they are hiking, they are skiing, you name it. They're they're a very active lifestyle, and they know stretching is one of the best things that they can do for their body. And the more they do it, the more they benefit from it, um, and the better they can enjoy their activities for longer.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Great. Um, what are some of the benefits of stretching now that you're mentioning it?

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Can you give us some well, first and foremost, to prevent injury. So let's take myself as an example. Uh I have I've unfortunately have had a bad lower back for many, many, many years. I would have um huge back spasms, and the older that I got, the longer the spasms would last. So literally, um the last one I had, oh, probably five, six years ago, um literally couldn't get off the floor for weeks. So, and and they're horrible. Ever since I started Stretch Lab, and you know, I use Stretch Lab as well. For me personally, I've never had another back back spasm ever again. Wow. Um, I can't tell you the number of stories that I hear from people who will pull me aside here in town. Once they realize that my wife and I own Stretch Lab, they're like, oh my gosh, it has been amazing. I am a disciple of you guys. Um, you guys have helped out my life. Um, I'm able to do the things that I I want to do, it's helped me prevent injuries. Um, I either can play golf better or I can swing the paddle ball racket better, um, or I'm going longer hikes now. I'm just a better overall person. And who would have known that stretching would do it? Yeah. But it it really does.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

It does. I was impressed, you know. Thank you for the session you invited me to. And I was very surprised how relaxed I felt. And it felt like I had undergone a massage, which I don't do often, but it was it very restful. And um I was surprised how by how therapeutic it was.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, so you'll probably feel taller because literally I did.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I felt like the stretch in my muscles, and you know, and as a yogi, I tend to stretch naturally, you know, moving from pose to pose, but this experience was very new to me, and that felt really good. Can you tell me a little bit of what I would have what I might have gone through?

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, so obviously, um, did you do a full body stretch? Okay. So some of our clients will focus on specific parts of the body. So right now we're gonna start to see a lot of golfers in the studio who are getting ready for the golf season. And obviously they're gonna focus more on their hips, they're gonna focus on their shoulders, their core muscles, not a whole lot on their on their legs. And so we'll we'll focus on those muscles with those type of people. Um, we're getting out of skiing, but a lot of our skiers, they were focusing on kind of lower half of their bodies. Sure. Um, but a lot of our clients, you know, will do a full body stretch. I do a full body stretch for the most part. We might concentrate on a few muscles if a few muscles were tight for me doing something or something like that. Um but the more I mean if you look at massage, massage is wonderful, right? It's it helps relax you. Um, it is really nice in the moment. Stretching, it is not relaxing. It can be a little bit, but it probably what you experienced, we're just like, whoa, you're like, we're going deep into a stretch here, right? Correct. And so it's not painful, but it's just like, yeah, we're really working a muscle here. Yeah. Right. And but the more you work on that muscle over time, the more it relaxes, the more it stretches out, and the better that muscle is going to be. And so that's what really helps prevent injuries. It really helps people perform better. We we get a lot of people who come in post injury. That I always think that's kind of a little bit of a bummer because they really should have been coming in beforehand to prevent the injury. Like if a runner pulls a hamstring, well, it's because you haven't been stretching right, right? And so, you know, it this is something that you want to do, this is something you want to maintain, whether it be once a week or every other week, um, it'll it'll really help the performance of the individual.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Why is it that stretching can prevent injuries?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Because you're you're relaxing the muscles, you're stretching out the muscles. Um, you're not gonna pull muscles nearly as much. Um, they are gonna be more limber. Um, you'll be able to focus on specific muscles according to the sport or according to what you're wanting to do in your daily life. Like I said, some people do it because they just want to be able to tie their shoes or just be able to walk around. Um, some people are doing because they're trying to excel in a specific sport. Uh so it, like I said, it's it's different for everybody, but it is one of the very few things in life where everybody goes, Yep, that's something I should do and something I should do more.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

A typical client of the stretch lab will visit the lab how many times a week or a month? How does how do the packages themselves?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

A typical person will come in about once a week, maybe every other week. We get people who come in every other day. Oh, wow. Yep. And some people will come in for two hours, three hours, but I would say the vast majority of people come in for one hour. Um, some people will just, hey, I got a half hour. That's fine. So we have all kinds of different packages based on the individual. Um, you know, some of our clients were only here for five, six, seven months of the year, and then they go down to Arizona or something like that. That's fine. We can we can accommodate that. Uh some of our clients travel a lot. Great. We can accommodate that. A lot of our members are members and pay a monthly membership fee to be there. You don't have to do that if you don't want to. You can buy kind of what I call like a punch card, like, hey, I'm gonna buy 10 stretches, work through those 10 stretches. If I still enjoy it, which the vast m vast majority of people do, they'll buy another 10 stretches. So you don't have to be, you don't have to have a membership if you don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Got it. And you told me earlier that you sometimes see cancer patients. Oh, yeah. I found that interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about why the stretching serves them as well?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

So when you think of cancer, it is abusive to the body. Um, you know, some some cancers more than others. But yeah, we've had a handful of cancer patients over the years and was take a, I think I was using kind of the example of a breast cancer patient. A breast cancer patient, you know, whether they do a um completely remove the breast or whether the case may be, it's it's you know, it's it's pretty traumatizing to the muscles. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, once they've got it gone through their procedures, then it's a matter of getting those muscles to relax so they can enjoy life better. And so, yeah, we've had a lot of patients like that come in and focus on a specific part of the body because of a ailment or some type of treatment that they went through, uh, in this case, cancer. So we've had multiple cancer patients.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Okay, great. You know, you were mentioning a little bit earlier in the podcast, um, a little bit about the clientele here in Bend. What have you learned about the community here in Bend through the stretch lab?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

So it is a very active community. I didn't think that we would be primarily focused on that 45 to 70 year age age group, but we are. And that is very common for stretch labs across the country. That tends to be the bread and butter of clients that we work with, just active older adults. I'm one of them. Yeah. Uh personally. So I'm 52. Um, you know, I'm trying to stay as active as as much as possible. And, you know, unfortunately, through the years, the body just tends to deteriorate and slow down. And, you know, stretching is one of the best things that you can do for your body. So just how active the community is. So I I've been here in Bend for, I think my wife and I moved here in 2012. So what is that, 13, 14 years? And obviously seeing the city change dramatically. Um, and just how active people are and all the different outdoor activities that we do all year round. And so we will do events around town, like we'll uh sometimes we'll do pole pedal paddle, which is coming up. If we if the ski season can make it to pole pedal paddle this year, um we'll do some of the marathons, we'll do a lot of the pickleball events, we'll do a lot of the golf tournaments where we will physically be on location, doing stretching if people want to try it. Uh-huh. Um, so we do what are called pop-ups all over town. We tend to do a couple a month, and it's all year. There, you know, there's there's events, there's some type of physical activity event happening all the time here in Bend. Wow. So and I come, we know, we moved here from San Diego, which is an active all-year-round community as well. Uh, but this is tends to be just a nucleus of it here in the area.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So keep you busy.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, it keeps us busy for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Can you tell me a little bit how the flexologists are trained and what knowledge they have of the body and how they work with their clients?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah. So flexologists are the individuals within the studio. Uh, so we have about 12 flexologists in the studio right now who do the assisted one-on-one stretching with their clients. They uh usually come from some type of discipline, whether they are uh yoga instructors, physical therapists, excuse me, physical therapists, uh, weight training. Um, they can be Pilates instructors, uh, you name it, uh, massage therapists. In other words, they've had some type of formal training in their background, some type of licensing in their background where they understand human anatomy and how the body operates really, really well. Then they go to our training. So once they, once we hire them, uh, they go to through our training, which is a few-week training. It's actually a national certification that they have to take multiple exams about. They have to attend a multi-day training um off-site, and then they have to do a multi-day training within the studio. So they are highly specialized within training. And like I said, it is a national certification that they get to become a flexologist within our studio that they keep for life. Yeah. And it is we are moving our clients in ways that um you need to understand human anatomy and how it works and how certain muscle groups affect certain other muscles and based on what the individual is trying to do and accomplish. And so that they need to be very knowledgeable about it. Of course. And as you probably experienced, yeah, we're all over our clients. Yeah. Um, so they need to be comfortable touching people, they need to be comfortable moving people in certain directions. Um, they need to know when they're they're coming up to the point of, hey, this stretch might be going just a tad too deep, or maybe not enough. Sure. And so uh we have an entire mechanism uh way that we stretch people to kind of be in that sweet spot where we're really uh making it beneficial for them.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Wonderful. And how has the stretch lab that benefited you, besides, you know, being the owner and with your wife as an athlete yourself? You just told me that you're about to go to a track and field event where you volunteer. I can tell you're an active person. You know, you came in tennis shoes today. Like, you know, how has this benefited you as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, so I think I did I mentioned earlier or to you earlier. I, you know, used to have bad back spasms, right? Yeah. Those have gone away. Um every now and then I will uh like if I I lift weights quite a bit, lift weights a few days a week. Every now and then I'll try to list something that, all right, you just you you went a little bit too heavy today. Yeah. Um and I will uh some of our flexologists, like one or a couple of them are um physical therapists as well. And so they'll know how to really focus on a certain muscle, like, okay, yeah, you straighten that muscle a little bit, was focused on that muscle, kind of stretch, stretch it out, get it relaxed. Yeah. Um, or maybe I slept wrong in the bed or something like that. And just all right, you know, it just hurt my body in some way. Stretching will help it. So you just give it a little bit of time, you start stretching those muscles the right way, it'll it'll go away.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

So yeah, it has not only helped me physically, it has helped my wife physically, it has helped uh a tremendous number of people here in the bend area. And like I said, it's very gratifying to be pulled aside and just being told that just how much it has changed somebody's life. And like I said, who would have known that stretching could do it?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, mobility is vitality.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Well, it's just, you know, people should be active, people should be going to the gym, people should be swimming like yourself, people should be playing golf and playing pickleball. I, you know, my wife and I, we just got back from two weeks in Europe. God knows how many miles we walked over there. I mean, we were walking over 20,000 steps every single day. Wow. And I'm just like, my God, what would I do to have one of our flexologists on this trip with us just to stretch us? Uh, because we were sore every single night from from from all the walking that we were doing. Yeah. And uh yeah, it would just, it just helps out in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I'm so happy you guys are here. Yeah. And as a last question, um, Blair, what does health and wellness mean to you? Something I'm asking a lot of people I'm interviewing. And, you know, obviously there are many paths to health and wellness, but through what you've experienced and lived through the stretch lab and your own life before that, what has health and wellness meant meant to you?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

So I'm gonna take this a little bit deeper. So I'm gonna go into one of my other companies, which is the franchise development company by the name of Frannet. So in that company, we help people purchase franchises who want to own a franchise. We just finished doing our research on a company by the name of the Ultimate Longevity Center. Ultimate Longevity Center, um, it is being found by Gary uh uh gosh, I forget his last name. He he runs a podcast himself. It is a world-renowned podcast. Um I forget Gary's last name. Okay. And uh Tony Robbins. I'm probably probably familiar with Tony Robbins and um another gentleman um by the name of uh Anthony Geisler. Medicine seems to be going in a direction where we're starting to understand the human anatomy and what can make a body, our physical bodies last longer. One of the things that people really want to do is to be able to keep their bodies longer and in and performing better over time so we don't pass away early. Right. You know, we want to stay around for our grandchildren for as long as possible, but in a healthy way. Sure. Right? We don't want to be, you know, curled up in some ball in the corner of a room, unable to move.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

We're health span parallels lifespan. Right. That we're healthy as long as we're living. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

And in that and but they're starting to learn more and more of how we can extend life expense expectancy more and more by understanding what the body needs, the nutrients that it needs, the physical activity that it needs. And, you know, you've you've probably heard of, I think they're called like the blue zones or something like that. What are the commonalities behind all those zones?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Unity, connection, diet.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

And those people live well into their upper 80s and the lower 90s, right? And so the the medical community is starting to learn more and more about this. And if you think about the insurance companies, like the life insurance companies, life insurance companies are very, very profitable. And the reason why they're profitable is they generally know within fairly good timeline of when you're gonna die, right? And so the odds are stacked in their favor because they generally know based on your habits and what you do when you're gonna pass away. Well, now that we're understanding human anatomy more, we're able to fight against that and live longer. And so just the just like I said, how the whole body operates, it's been a huge movement that I think we will see and be able to get to the masses here, meaning you and I be able to do work on our bodies, understand our bodies and what what our body needs and what our bodies thrive on, um, that we can do every day to help achieve a better lifestyle. Um and stretching is part of that. Stretching is absolutely part of that. So it's not only supplements, not only exercise, it's it's not only what we eat, but it's also stretching, just taking care of your body. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So it's it's it's a fascinating thing that we're seeing more and more results um and more and more places that we'll be able to take advantage of as a human race um to be able to achieve all that. And it is not hocus poca stuff. This is I've um talked to my friends in the metal community community, and they're like, yep, this is real. It is coming, and this is all fascinating, great stuff.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah. What a how lucky we are. To be in Bend where we have so much, you know, this outdoor playground where we can play and thrive in.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, and be able to enjoy the beauty of it. Just got to stay healthy to do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Lastly, Blair, where can um the Bend community find the stretch lab? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

So Stretch Lab is located in Northwest Crossing, uh, over by the Grove, if you know where Rancer Butcher Chef is, um, or over by Summit High School. We're right there in the Grove. Um, we're open um Monday through Saturday, um, um, mainly open at 8 a.m. Uh, Monday through Thursday, we're open until 7 p.m. Uh Friday's a little bit shorter hours, Saturday's a little bit shorter hours because that's when people want to be messing around out there. Sure. And uh, but uh yeah, we're at the studio is there. It's about a 1,200 square foot uh studio. There are 10 stretching benches there. Um our general manager will be there in all of our flexol just to help with everybody with their stretching needs.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Okay, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

But happy to welcome more people to the studio.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Great. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Thank you for having me.