Rock Steady Boxing helping seniors with Parkinson's slow their symptoms

Barb Bender asks for help to do up her gloves, then steps in front of a heavy boxing bag. Her face serious, the senior starts punching in tempo as a trainer tells her to keep going. 

After a minute it's time to move to the next station. Bender and about nine other seniors are part of the Rock Steady Boxing program, an exercise program for people with Parkinson's disease. 

"I feel stronger and sometimes steadier," Bender said. 

The University of Regina's Dr. Paul Schwann Centre brought the program to the Queen City in March 2019. The non-profit Rock Steady organization was started in 2006 in Indiana, inspired by various studies in the '80s and '90s that suggested vigorous exercise can help daily living or even slow disease progression. 

Patrick Bernat, a clinical exercise physiologist at the University of Regina and one of the program's coaches, says the program has seen a lot of success since it was started less than a year ago.

"We've noticed improvements in people's strength, power, balance, agility, just in the short little time that we've been operating this class, which is very, very cool to see," Bernat said. 

The class meets three times a week at a dance studio in the university's kinesiology building. It begins with a warm-up, followed by aerobics exercises, then a number of boxing activities. No people are struck, though the equipment gets a good thumping.

Bender has had Parkinson's symptoms since about 2007 and was diagnosed five years later, she said. She joined the Rock Steady Boxing Program when it started. 

"I was really pleased to find the fellowship that was here with this, as well as the boxing," she said. 

It took about six months of the program to feel the effects but she's continuing to get stronger and hopes to continue improving her boxing skills. Her Parkinson's is better than it was a year ago, but there are still some bad days, she said. 

"This does not take Parkinson's away. It just manages it," Bender said. 

The coaches try to approach the class with the mindset that everyone is an individual and moves at their own pace. 

"We want everyone to think they're doing a good job and everything that they're doing — whether it's as good as the person beside them or not — it's helping them progress and slow the progression of the disease as well," Carmen Agar said. 

Agar is a clinical exercise physiologist and Rock Steady boxing coach. Slow movement is one of the biggest symptoms of Parkinson's Agar sees.

"They get stuck in what's called freezing, so they have a hard time initiating the movements," Agar said. "It takes a lot of their thought to kind of move the way a lot of other people without the disease just don't even have to think about."

Boxing forces people to take tiny steps in all directions while not focusing on their feet, she said. 

"They're concentrating on what their hands are doing, either protecting their face or reaching out to strike," Agar said. "But that's also challenging their balance as well. So kind of almost tricking the mind to work on something while focusing on something else."

At the beginning of the class, they had about a dozen clients apply, and one new person or so joins each month, Agar said. 

"We're starting to get the word out there, which is ultimately the goal," Agar said. "We want as many people as possible to come and join our program."

Bender said people are surprised when she talks about the class. 

"Really? You're boxing? You take boxing? I haven't found all that many people that know what Rock Steady Boxing is.

"It's almost a treat for me to come out three mornings a week," Bender said.