Photo by Lauri Shillings
“The worldwide Parkinson’s community is more optimistic now than we’ve been in a long time. While the researchers are doing their extraordinarily important work in the background, Rock Steady is serving the Parkinson’s community today.”
— Dr. Ryan Cotton ’06
Steady as Chief Scientific Officer in 2020, when, along with the rest of the world, the gym faced an unprecedented challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge of how to deliver the Rock Steady method without a coach holding the other side of the punching bag or expecting clients to have their own boxing equipment at home seemed insurmountable. But that’s the thing about the Rock Steady community: they never give up. “We had to take our training and adapt it to an online delivery model,” recalled Cotton. “As we were developing an online training model, we were also applying a therapist mindset and adding clinical, evidence-based best practices to the curriculum.”
That online delivery model is still in use today. Virtual classes and training options have turned living rooms into personal boxing rings, allowing those without a Rock Steady gym—or with more advanced progressions of Parkinson’s—to continue landing blows and going toe-to-toe with the disease. The growth of the Rock Steady community is bittersweet for Cotton and his team—while they’re glad to see Rock Steady benefiting so many lives, they cannot ignore the fact that Parkinson’s is on the rise, and, with it, the need for effective treatment. It is this unavoidable truth and passion for service that drives the active partnership between Rock Steady Boxing and the University of Indianapolis..
Today, faculty from the Krannert School of Physical Therapy actively conduct studies to inform, influence, and invigorate the Rock Steady curriculum. From ensuring that all 800 affiliate gyms provide the same pound-for-pound effective training to every client, to researching the benefits of Rock Steady on a cellular level, the results of these studies will shape Rock Steady’s in-person and virtual training for years to come. Training that may one day be led by UIndy physical and occupational therapy and exercise science students currently studying the Rock Steady method in clinical placements at Indianapolis-area gyms. As he considers the future of Rock Steady and his own professional journey, Cotton hopes to become an “unemployed
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MAGAZINE // WINTER 2024
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