Punching out Parkinson’s
Patients with Parkinson’s disease use boxing to relieve symptoms
At the Fit 4 Boxing Club in Hampton, 90-year-old Charlie Pearson, whose arms are muscled like those of a longshoreman, donned a pair of boxing gloves and punched hard into the gloves of former lightweight boxer Bugsy O’Connell.
The workout is designed to help Mr. Pearson, who has Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair.
Parkinson’s is a neurological disorder that affects the nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that passes messages on from one neuron to another. Symptoms include tremors, muscle rigidity and changes in speech and gait. There is no cure, but symptoms can be reduced by medication and exercise.
Rich Mushinsky, who owns the gym with his wife, Laurie, said Scott Newman, an Indianapolis prosecutor with Parkinson’s disease, was working out with a boxer when he noticed his Parkinson’s symptoms were improving. Mr. Newman eventually founded a non-contact boxing program called Rock Steady Boxing, to help other Parkinson’s patients.
Research has shown that forced exercise, such as the exercises boxers use to get ready for fights, forces dopamine from the brain of a Parkinson’s patient into the body, allowing better balance and movement.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mushinsky was doing boxing routines with Dr. Michael Bell, then a practicing physician with Parkinson’s, three to four days per week.
“I didn’t understand why he was getting better, but he was,” Mr. Mushinsky said.
Later, Mr. Mushinsky went to Indianapolis to become a certified Rock Steady Boxing trainer and learned why, he said. Now, he and three other Rock Steady certified trainers have evaluated more than 300 Parkinson’s patients at the gym, he said.
At the gym in December, he shouted numbers to the Parkinson’s boxers — four and five for uppercuts, one and two for straight punches and three and six for left and right hooks.
The boxers work out to a mixture of upbeat dance music, oldies, disco and rock … “anything uplifting” Mr. Mushinsky said.
They also dance to the music, doing the Cupid Shuffle and a conga line, he said.
“We try to have fun [and] make it fun for them, too,” he said.
The gym family also serves as a kind of support group for the Parkinson’s patients, where they can make friends with people who understand what they’re going through.
Former Hampton police detective Jimmy Hughes, whom trainer Joyce Williams describes as the star of the class, had lost his ability to walk because of Parkinson’s disease when he first went to the Butler Veterans Affairs Hospital in 2016.
He lost the ability to stand up, and had trouble using his arms, Mr. Hughes said.
Then, doctors at the VA
hospital put him through an intense course of physical therapy, and one physician got him leg braces, he said. When he graduated from physical therapy, he was sent to Fit 4 Boxing.
During eight months of physical therapy and then boxing workouts, he lost almost 100 pounds, Mr. Hughes said.
“The VA is important,” his wife, Joan, said in December. “Without their assistance he wouldn’t be here.”
The Mushinskys said the gym in Hampton has about 40 men and 10 women with Parkinson’s working out there.
In early December, the Mushinskys opened a second Fit 4 Boxing location in Export, which is run by their nephew, Brett Burkhart.
At the gym in Export on Dec. 26, a group of men with Parkinson’s punched heavy bags and small punching bags with determination to Mr. Burkhart’s shouted commands.
Though he had only been there for six classes, Joe Bramer, 76, of Murrysville said he already felt a slight improvement in his symptoms. His daughter, Mindy Bramer, said her father doesn’t use his cane as much, and sometimes even leaves it behind now.
Art Snyder, 78, now of Rural Valley, who also was working out at the gym, said playing soccer with a men’s soccer league in Texas until he was 60 probably delayed his development of Parkinson’s disease by a number of years.
Now that he has the disease, “Boxing is basically my salvation in terms of keeping my reflexes, strength and balance,” he said.
Fit 4 Boxing will stage a benefit boxing event on Jan. 26 to pay for social events for the Parkinson’s patients, and also to pay for certification for its trainers in the Rock Steady methods used with Parkinson’s patients and for equipment.
This year will be the fourth year for the event. Last year, the benefit drew more than 500 people.
This year’s event will be held at the Syria Shrine Center in Harmar.
Mr. Mushinsky said there are $150 VIP tickets, which pay for dinner at ringside tables, and $75 tickets which include a buffet, cookie tables and cash bar. The deadline to buy those tickets is Jan. 18, but people can purchase standing room only tickets at the door for $40.
The event will feature eight to 12 amateur boxing matches supervised by USA Boxing. WTAE-TV news anchor Mike Clark will be master of ceremonies.
For more information, call 412-213-3584.