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Fitness, physical therapy adapt to COVID-19 crisis

Erik Lewish is the fitness manager at Adirondack Health. Photo provided)

LAKE PLACID — Erik Lewish, a fitness manager at Adirondack Health, was ready for the winter sports season to end.

And for good reason.

The end of winter meant that his girlfriend, 2018 Olympian Clare Egan, would be returning from the World Cup biathlon tour in Europe. All that remained on one day in early March was to pick her up at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, drive home to Lake Placid and catch up on things.

Not in their plans was a test for COVID-19, separate quarantines in Lake Placid and getting caught up, albeit temporarily, in the coronavirus pandemic that can strike virtually anywhere and everywhere. To date, more than a million globally have tested positive.

“It was hard,” Lewish said last week by phone. “Especially, my girlfriend Clare was gone all winter long. She finally comes back, we had been living together for a few days, and then they separate us again. That was really tough.”

The equipment at Adirondack Health in Lake Placid, pictured above just after the facility opened early last year, has sat dormant since the physical therapy section was closed in March due to the coronavirus. (Enterprise file photo — Griffin Kelly)

For Egan and Lewish, the story ended well. Egan’s tests for COVID-19 came back negative. Lewish spent his week in isolation coming up with a fitness routine that is intended for those caught up in isolation. Given the stay-at-home executive order in New York, that becomes a fit for nearly all.

“I really tried to focus on just normal household items that people can use to do a good workout with,” said Lewish, who used everything he could in a room at the Wildwood on the Lake hotel in Lake Placid, including chairs he lifted for balance.

Lewish’s fitness classes at Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center have gone from in person to online, and are just a part of the initiatives put in place by Adirondack Health during the coronavirus pandemic.

PT changes

Physical therapy continues for inpatients. Telehealth between patients and doctors has become the new normal. Online connections are being used in ways they were rarely used previously.

“We needed to tear down and reorganize ourselves so that we were following the executive order by the governor in the outpatient area,” said Rick Preston, director of rehabilitation and sports medicine at Adirondack Medical Center. “Life has not really changed in the inpatient area. The outpatient, together with the screenings, we’ve started seeing which patients should be absolutely essential.”

All patients are screened even before entering the hospital. Many others are treated through combinations of online programs, emails and telephone calls.

“It’s becoming a normal way of life,” Preston said. “Any patient coming into any of our sites are screened, their temperature is taken.”

Visitors are not allowed at the Adirondack Medical Center hospital in Saranac Lake or the Mercy Living Center nursing home in Tupper Lake, and the medical fitness center in Lake Placid is closed.

Physical therapists are using masks, goggles and gloves. And social distancing is a given.

“Obviously, the optimal is to be right there touching and doing some of the manual things that we do,” Preston said. “A lot of these people don’t fit the criteria (for an outpatient visit) and are in the high-risk population, so we ask them not to come in. The last thing we want to do is expose somebody that’s otherwise healthy.”

In addition to group exercise programs being switched to online platforms, telehealth has created one-on-one sessions in a virtual environment. In one case, Preston said, a total-joint patient was viewed walking across her living room, and then her husband joined in the exercise routine.

“We’ve had one therapist already with half a dozen of these, and she’s finding it rewarding, as are her patients,” Preston said.

But for Lewish, this new way of instruction and coaching struck really close to home.

Two days after Egan returned from Europe on March 11, she started feeling “a little off,” Lewish said. One day later, a fever arrived. By Friday the 13th, Egan had been tested and Lewish was shuffled off to Wildwood on the Lake for a quarantine that would last six days.

“I’m a really very active person,” said Lewish, former assistant chief of sport for U.S. Biathlon. “So now I was stuck in a room.”

Not the type to sit around and watch “Friends” reruns all day long, Lewish put himself to work.

“I wanted to get some workouts in,” he said. “I couldn’t leave the room, so I developed some quarantine exercises using my background as an exercise scientist. Work full body, and get a good effective workout in, in such a small space without any specialty equipment or anything like that.

“It was a fun challenge for myself to try to come up with these movements and make it a good workout as well, not just stretching.”

Suddenly, a chair became that specialty equipment.

“Yeah, I had to get very creative, especially with any type of pulling exercise was difficult to do without a pull-up bar,” Lewish said. “I was lifting chairs.”

Then came the liquid containers.

“I found that a gallon jug of water weighs about 8-and-a-half pounds,” he said. “Pretty good resistance to use, very common thing that most people have in their home. Bottle of wine, also, weighs about 3 pounds.

“Plus,” he added, chuckling, “you can treat yourself to some wine afterwards.”

On March 18 the quarantine ended. Egan was OK.

“The results came back negative, which was a big relief to all of us,” Lewish said.

Now Egan is a curious spectator as Lewish goes through his fitness routine at home.

“I tried to get her to do some of them with me. She’s really just having fun not exercising right now,” Lewish said. “Professional athlete, this is her time off now. I think she’s entertained by me.”

The online presentation by Lewish, as well as those appearing on assorted virtual platforms by other fitness coaches and physical therapists, is aimed to keep people fit as the pandemic prevents them from going to gyms or other public places in groups.

“We’re trying to keep people healthy,” Preston said. “We all need an outlet for our stress.”

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