Kelsey Bugher is a nurse with Genesis HealthCare System, who has worked with mental health and substance abuse clients. She believes there is correlation between exercise and maintaining sobriety.
That’s why the owner of CrossFit Indelible in Byesville is offering free weekly CrossFit class to those in recovery.
“I have seen the typical counseling, medication, going to group meetings type of treatments and that is helpful, but I think the missing link is exercise because it literally gives you the same endorphins you get from the high when you are using,” Bugher said.
In addition to the benefit of exercise, the class also offers participants the benefit of a community, she added.
“You come in here every Monday, you are going to see the same people who are going through something similar to what you are and you have that support system,” Bugher said.
Bugher believes exercise can help cure depression/anxiety and it rebalances the brain chemistry better than medication.
The idea to start a recovery CrossFit class came to Bugher in a variety of ways.
“I’m like a big believer that if something comes across your path three times its meant to be a or a sign from God,” Bugher said. “So before I ever opened the gym I listened to a podcast about The Phoenix ( a national online and in-person sober living community).”
Within a couple months of her opening CrossFit Indelible in 2019, one of the gym’s members suggested doing something for those in recovery like another program she had heard of called Sweat for Sobriety.
Bugher listened to a podcast on Sweat for Sobriety and thought with all the overdoses and addiction in this area, it might be something she can offer.
Before she could get a program started, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down gyms. But in December, Bugher noticed a gym member was wearing a bracelet that said recovery. Bugher said the member had just moved to Guernsey County from Wisconsin for the recovery programs offered here.
Bugher realized this was the third time an exercise recovery program crossed her path and she organized the weekly CrossFit class at 6:30 p.m. each Monday.
Anyone in drug or alcohol recovery who has maintained sobriety for 48 hours prior to class is able to participate for free. The class can accommodate all exercise levels from beginners to experts.
“Basically at CrossFit we work with the laws of accommodation. If we do the same exact sequence of exercise all the time our bodies will to that and you won’t see the results you are looking for,” Bugher said. “So we are always doing something different. It’s constantly varied and the functional movements that you and I should perform everyday like squats getting up from the chair, dropping something on the ground to pick it up, pushing, pressing, all the functional movements that you do in everyday life we perform them at high intensity.”
CrossFit Indelible is located at 270 Main St.
For more information visit www.thephonix.org/findaclass or email [email protected]
