My Story
When I was living in San Diego I was asked to speak in front of a group. They wanted me to talk about types of pain and why people develop pain. The person in charge asked me to put together a short bio about myself but one of the topics he wanted to me to discuss was how did I get involved in my field. I would always say that I was involved in sports all my life and then went to college to study exercise science. This time however something popped in my head that I had never thought about. Here’s my story.
When I was a very young boy I used to look through my mom’s medical encyclopedias. Maybe some of you can relate to these types of books. They had these clear overlays that built up layers of the human body. The encyclopedias had a skeleton layer, a muscle layer, a nerves layer and so on. I would constantly look at these pictures and quite honestly found them fascinating. Looking back it amazes me to think that at such an early age I found my passion - working with the human body.
I have always played sports and still do. When I was in my pre teen years I developed a pain in my right ankle. It persisted for a couple of weeks. This was affecting my sports so my dad brought me to the hospital to get x-rayed. The doctor told me and my dad that I may have a bone chip but later found out I did not. That was a relief. My doctor told me that my right leg was shorter than my left so he prescribed a lift in my right shoe. I wore this lift which was about 3/8 of an inch high from my pre teens till I was about 23 years old. Over this time I played every sport and also had numerous ankle sprains. Guess what ankle I constantly sprained? You guessed it my right. I just thought that was part of playing sports so I would tape it for support and go on playing. Over time it would heal only to sprain it again. The lift is what I now call a band aid for the symptom. Instead of addressing why my leg was shorter my doctor simply put a lift in my shoe. What he thought was the correct thing to do was in fact a long term detriment to me. Looking back the lift was thicker toward my heel and then tapered down when it got to my toes. So basically I was wearing a lift inside my right shoe so my heel was elevated. My left was normal. The calf muscle on my right side got tighter and I lost mobility in my right ankle. To this day my right calf is smaller than my left. If you think about it my right calf muscle never was moving through its proper range of motion. So basically the whole right side of my body was thrown off because of the lift in my shoe. I even ended up occasionally “tweaking” my right hip. Then I noticed I could not straighten my right knee completely. I always stood with my right knee slightly bent or flexed. I did not have the answers until after college when I went to work at the Egoscue clinic where my eyes were opened to looking at the human body differently than the conventional ways. I finally began to figure out what was really going on with the right side of my body.
After graduating college I went to work at a small personal training studio as an independent contractor. I loved to help people and I consider myself a people person so it was a perfect start. After a couple of years I moved to San Diego with a good friend of mine. Thank you Kevin for making the journey. While in San Diego I met my soon to be business partner at the local gym. He told me about this facility, the Egoscue clinic, where he worked and told me that they developed corrective exercise routines for people to correct muscle imbalances. I was very intrigued so I asked if there were any job openings. I worked there for about a year. I am grateful for that opportunity but I knew that I could take this philosophy to a new level. So Anthony and I formed Function First in 1995-96. In 2004 Anthony and myself parted ways and I formed Perfect Postures, Inc.. I know you are probably thinking are you and Anthony still friends. Yes we are still very good friends. We just took different paths. In 2005 I moved back to the east coast to be closer to family and to enjoy the changing of the seasons. No I am not crazy moving from San Diego to New England but thanks for asking. I still travel back to San Diego about every six weeks to work on clients. So here I am in Massachusetts continuing my passion, which is helping people live pain free and more productive, lives.
Accomplishments include:
- Was a special advisor to the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (San Diego Chapter)
- Contributing writer for the world famous Mike Boyle’s Strengthcoach.com web site
- Holds a patent on an ergonomic postural device to help correct pelvic and spinal deviations
- Was founder and president of Function First in San Diego, California
- Aaron’s former company voted Best Place To Go For A Sports Injury in all of southern California
- Aaron’s former company featured in San Diego Union Tribune, front-page coverage of the North County Times (San Diego), and many other media publications
- Aaron’s former company Featured on San Diego’s KUSI television
- Interviewed on radio from all over the world
- Worked with San Diego Flash (soccer team) as their conditioning and biomechanics expert
- Worked with members of the Jazzercise World Headquarters
- Worked with numerous professional and high level collegiate athletes
