Healthy People - Longer Lives

He's a man on a mission. Meindert Hinlopen hopes to level the playing field when it comes to personal training. His company's focus is to help people with developmental disabilities get in shape and find their passion. Say hello to Spectrum Health in this Encouraging Abilities podcast!

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Healthy People – Longer Lives

 

00:05

Welcome back to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast where we talk about anything and everything related to the disability community, primarily the developmental disability community. I am your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Today is actually part three of our Accessible Sports series. We've done podcasts with BC SportAbility and Sirota's Martial Arts Academy. Today we're talking with Meindert Hinlopen. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Who is...

 

00:33

getting people with developmental disabilities involved in working out and working with him, a personal trainer. Now, Mindert is a graduate of SFU, he's a registered kinesiologist and NCCP certified coach with Special Olympics here in BC, specifically with basketball, hockey and track and field. Now, he spent the last few years on the care support team of Ben who has now joined us.

 

00:58

Ben was Mindert's first client. They started doing workouts to help improve his strength for Special Olympics floor hockey because Ben loves hockey. Who doesn't? He also collects hockey cards. We can talk about that in a bit. Now they progressed from doing the workouts in his house to going to the rec center. Now Ben is 26 years old. Mindert and the team are currently working with him to get stronger and faster for his Special Olympics.

 

01:27

hockey season. So, Mindert and Ben, thank you for joining me today. Hi, Evan. Thank you so much for having us on. I'm excited to get to talking and talk a little bit more about myself and what I do and Ben will say hi as well. Hey, Ben, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So Mindert, what got you interested to be involved so much in the developmental disability community?

 

01:53

I really owe it actually initially to my older sister. She was volunteering for Special Olympics when I moved out to Burnaby and she convinced me to come and volunteer for Special Olympics Burnaby as well and from there I kind of just

 

02:13

grew a lot more in the community, volunteered for a number of years at Special Olympics, and then about three, four, five years ago. So I kind of wanted a bit of a change in my current career and decided I wanted to try a unique opportunity where I'll have the chance to work with someone that I haven't worked with before. And that was an awesome chance for me to kind of dip into.

 

02:34

the developmental disability community where I get to work with someone that, you know, I haven't had a lot of life experience with, and I've absolutely loved it, and I will continue to do it probably for the rest of my life. So how long have you been working with the developmental disability community now? So I've been volunteering with Social Olympics since 2015, and then I've been working with Ben for three years, or how long? About three years, yeah.

 

03:04

So what's the feedback you get from working with this particular group?

 

03:14

Ooh, the feedback. Well, I think the feedback I get is... I mean, I'll say my feedback. My feedback is I absolutely love it. Like, I love working with this group and I find it so...

 

03:29

One of my passions I'll say is being able to work with people from the developmental disability community and share my knowledge with them or helping them any way I can with what I've learned in my experiences. In terms of feedback they give me, I hope the feedback is, what do you mean, do you like me then? What's the feedback?

 

03:54

feels good though. I hope to be back and that they like me back and so I guess we'll continue to see. So just from you from from your own personal perspective it's it's a very rewarding challenge to do this. Yeah, I say so. I mean, I always try to I always feel rewarding. It's a weird thing for me to say.

 

04:18

No, I don't know if I truly feel rewarded by it, but I just love it. Like I don't know if it's I feel a reward, I feel like I just love it. It's something I'm good at. It's something I enjoy. I'm never at a point where I'm like, Oh, I don't want to go to work today. I can always, I don't want to do it. If I don't enjoy it. No, it's the opposite. I love it. I never.

 

04:37

never worried about having to go see a client because I don't feel like it today or this or that. I know how excited they are and that excites me as well, I guess, is how I would put it. Now that's, that's, that's, that I definitely understand that working with the Developmental Disabilities Association, I often feel the same way. So did you start working with Special Olympics or did you just start working with clients with developmental disabilities? No, so I started with Special Olympics, I started volunteering

 

05:06

I think I said about 2015 for basketball. I did that for five, four or five years first. And then about 2018, 2019 is where I decided I wanted to get a little bit more involved. And that's when I joined the care support team of the band that's next to me, Ben. And that was kind of my first step into getting a little bit more involved in the community rather than just doing an hour, an hour and a half of Special Olympics coaching each week.

 

05:34

kind of going to that role and then from there kind of progressing to getting more clients. So I started like Spectrum Health, which is my company in the beginning of the fifth year is when I kind of launched it after working with Ben for two years, two and a half years and figuring out.

 

05:53

you know, maybe there's also a greater need for this for other individuals in the community wanting to work out and get, you know, personalized and specific kind of workouts catered towards them and their needs and their abilities. Now, does that mean you have a bunch of other how many clients in this community? Do you have

 

06:13

Prior, so I have now I have nine clients in the community. Prior to starting, I just had Ben. But prior to starting, I just had one that was Ben and then talking to Tim and his parents. And they both agreed that they liked it and they thought there was definitely usage of other families and individuals wanting to use a service like this. And that's kind of where I.

 

06:37

I started it, so I started in January and then have gotten about eight or nine clients now. So you started technically in January this year? January this year, 2023. Okay, good. So hopefully we can get the word out. Because I mean, the health of people with developmental disabilities is so important. I mean, they're living longer, they're having more involved lives, and this can only be a huge benefit.

 

07:06

Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, as, as we try to promote more independence within that community, I think physical activity is something.

 

07:16

that everyone can have some independence with. And I've definitely started to see it myself. And Vancouver in the Lower Mainland is such an amazing place. We have so many awesome rec centres and other facilities that people can use. So I thought, you know what, if I can get people comfortable, used to it, independence, you know, there's more likely to go and be physically active on their own. So there's a huge push that independence is in the community.

 

07:46

like a physical activity aspect. Yeah, I just, I see this as a growth industry. And I like, you know, after being with DDA for a number of years now, I don't really see that. And that's what piqued my interest in wanting to talk to you is because no one seems to be doing this. So, you know, kudos to you because this is a real growth industry. So that said, what do you think has been lacking for people in the developmental disability community when it comes to health and exercise?

 

08:14

So yeah, I think the biggest thing that I see lacking is having done Special Olympics for a number of years, I got to witness what group activities meant. And there's quite a few, but there's not enough yet where those group activities, are they not frequent enough or they can be smaller in size. So for my program at Special Olympics, there's 30 to 35 different athletes show up.

 

08:44

They're all so varying in ability that...

 

08:48

I'm trying to accommodate everyone, but in the end, people on the higher or lower end are obviously going to get left out or aren't going to get out of it as much as they could had it been a smaller group setting. And I think that's what kind of really inspired me as well is to try to make it more one-on-one or super small group settings to really focus and allow them to get the most out of their own potential in a way. And that's kind of

 

09:18

approach like I want to work just one-on-one or you know do a small group class so I can really focus on everyone and focus on their needs and focus on how I can best you know get them to reach their potential yeah and at the end of the day not everybody wants to play on a team right exactly and that's that's a big thing too right it's very intimidating

 

09:39

to try a sport you've never played before. And it's super social as well because there's 20, 30 people showing up any given time, especially in the lower mainland sports. So that's something I've also seen as well, is slowly getting them comfortable with exercise and then approaching the idea, like, oh, now that they're feeling comfortable doing these different exercises, would you ever think about doing Special Olympics? And I've luckily had the chance to get one or two of my clients thinking about doing Special Olympics or Special Olympics in the future as well.

 

10:09

because they've started to feel more comfortable doing exercise. I've showed them how to dribble a basketball and now they have belief in themselves that they can dribble the basketball. So it's less intimidating of a barrier to get there as well. Well yeah and besides your services and besides Special Olympics, where can people with developmental disabilities find personal training or can they?

 

10:36

They can find personal training. I think if you went to any studio or gym that had personal trainers on staff, you could get that personal training for individuals as well. The whole idea of my service is that I'm mobile and I'm understanding that it's always tough for people to go to a gym or a studio for taking transit or a ride.

 

10:59

So I said like, hey, let's cut that out. Why don't I come to you? I can meet you at your house or I can meet you at your apartment gym or I can try to meet you at the community center like that's closest to you so we can walk over. Because again, I wanna get them comfortable on their own doing it. So my whole goal is if we work out at home a couple of times with me and then hopefully one other day of the week, I'll make you do exercises on yourself. You know your space, you know the equipment you have at home

 

11:29

I've had some success with that where I'll take the clients doing the exercises during our sessions and I'll ask them to do it two or three times a week on their own. And I've had a lot of success with them. At their house, they'll send me a screenshot of their Apple watch and it saves 20 minutes, 30 minutes of resistance or cardio training of what they do for the exercises that we do. They're doing them on their own now.

 

11:54

What do you what do you when you say you're mobile? What do you actually bring to the client? Obviously, you're not going to bring a gym with you. But what do you bring in? What do you get them to do? So I bring Like yoga mat, I'll bring a bunch of bands. I'll bring some hurdles. I'll bring some cones

 

12:14

I really try to tailor the exercises towards what they would like. So if they have specific goals in terms of some of them are doing, like Ben, doing Special Olympics sports and he wants to get stronger for hockey or faster for hockey. So we're going to do stuff that's going to focus more on that. If someone's just looking to generally move and get a bit better, we'll do the exercises and tailor the workouts towards that. But for me, I basically bring this, I just comment it's pretty funny. I show up with this giant duffle bag.

 

12:44

full of yoga mats, bands, stone turtles, we have some like weird little exercise ladders. So all these kind of smaller portable exercise equipment that we can use rather than big heavy weights. We don't need those big heavy weights especially when we're starting to drive a comfortable movie. We can do a lot of body weight, a lot of squats, planks, sit-ups, a lot of stuff we can do and again my whole idea is the last equipment

 

13:12

I use and the more likely I can get you to do exercises on your own. So if I have to do a lot of the stuff you do with equipment that you don't have at home it's going to get very hard for me to kind of get that client to do exercises on their own. So is a lot of your exercise primarily to do with cardio and conditioning and not so much weight training?

 

13:34

No, I would say it's a big mix of both. So I would say like a lot of some of it's cardio, but a lot of it's like resistance training. So muscle training, a lot of it's like balance training, making sure they have the ability to get balanced for themselves is a lot of like full prevention. Yeah, working a lot of my lower body strength, core strength, and then some cardio and conditioning in there as well. The cardio and conditioning comes into more how I structure the workouts.

 

14:02

So doing exercises back to back with less rest will keep that heart rate higher. And that's what that client will kind of get that cardio style of workout. Right. Now I'm going to switch over here a little bit. Ben, I'd like to talk to you if that's okay. That's fine. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Ben. Well, let me start.

 

14:32

What do you like to do? I like sports. What sports do you like? Well, I like hockey, football. Eventually I'm going to enter another sport in Special Olympics. I'm just hockey. So tell me a little about your hockey in Special Olympics.

 

14:58

uh... well we do stuff like drill like it wouldn't the proper on the call and i play on right wing right wing oxley you're you're you shoot right i'm a lefty i used to play uh... uh... left wing in hockey so it did this is is this floor hockey or is this ice hockey

 

15:27

Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay, that's cool. So how long have you been doing that? I've been doing it. Well, I've been doing it for just over a year. So what do you like about it? Um, it's it enabled to connect with new people. Um, and it's just really fun as well. Absolutely. It's really fun. How many people are on your team? Do you know? Um,

 

15:56

There's how many, 25, 30? Yeah, 25 or 30 people. Awesome, how many? They do like tournaments, a couple tournaments a year as well. That's awesome, like how many, are you a good goal scorer? Not yet. You'll get there. Who's your favorite hockey player right now? I'm going to say McDavid. Oh, he's amazing to watch, isn't he?

 

16:25

Yeah, he is. That guy is a magician. But you must, are you a Canucks fan? Are you hopeful for the new Canucks season? Yeah, I'm a huge Edmonton fan, but I'm a Canucks fan even because I live here, right? Yeah, I grew up in Edmonton, but I have to tell you, I've never liked the Edmonton Oilers. I'm a diehard Canucks fan. Oh, wow. But they're gonna need a miracle if they're gonna get anywhere near a cup, I think.

 

16:53

I actually have confidence for this year. They got some good players in the offseason. Yeah, yeah, we'll see how this goes. It's about rebuilding, right? Yeah. So what do you think about Mindert as a trainer? Um, he feels a good job. He does a good job. He's getting you prepped for the season? Yeah. When does your hockey season actually start?

 

17:17

on the end of September, the first practice. Oh, coming up real quick. So so what are you doing to get in in shape for that? I'm doing stuff like legs, leg presses. I'm walking walking. I'm outside my house like down down street and back. I'm doing I'm using dumbbells. That sounds good. Black hole, black hole.

 

17:45

Yeah, a lot of pulldown. Also, the exercise is in the gym. So you guys, which gym do you like to go to? We go to his apartment gym. Oh, okay. So he's got a gym that comes with the suite and stuff. That's kind of convenient. Yeah. We also go to a gym here in North Burnaby called Willingdon High Park.

 

18:09

There's a community center there that we go to as well. Well that's good. So there's lots of stuff to throw around. So besides hockey, what do you like to do? What do I like to do? Collect hockey cards. Oh, that's a good one. You got any really good valuable ones? Well, I got McDavid's. Of course. And Jack Eichel. And which one?

 

18:38

And Eichel. Oh, Eichel. Oh cool. That's cool. Nice. You're my first cup here. Yeah. So you've got a, you'll have to get a new one with Quinn Hughes with his captain's jersey. Yeah, I know. I also own like 20 NHL jerseys. Really? Wow. Yeah. I have one. Twenty is a lot. Yeah. Can you list a few? Pardon? Can you tell me about a few?

 

19:07

Um, well I have a McDavid, the M&M's orange jersey from McDavid. I have a Pedersen All-Star jersey from the first All-Star Game of Them. And I have a Hughes jersey, Betzer, four-bounded from the Canucks. What do you think of Betzer these days? I'm not really impressed. Yeah, he was like the great hope.

 

19:36

hasn't really transpired as it means good don't get me wrong but yeah we'll have to see how he does this year first year he's again injured a whole time yeah yeah he was and left the door to the bench open and oh that was brutal wasn't it yeah that looked pretty painful yeah well that's great so what do you what do you like to do when you're just at home Ben

 

20:07

So you really are a rabid hockey fan is what you're trying to tell me. Yes. That's good. Cause the season's coming up and getting excited. I'll get my own Jersey on. So we'll see how everything goes. So I'm going to, I thank you for talking to me, Ben. I'm going to switch this back to mind dirt now, if that's okay. I know. Perfect. All right. Mind dirt. So, um,

 

20:35

In your view can most people with developmental disabilities use systems at gyms without too much of an issue or do you some because obviously Machines like hammer strength and things like that are pretty much designed for typically developed people Do you run into any issues with that or do you even use machines or is it more of a freeway thing?

 

20:59

I like the idea of free weight, like I said, balance, which is an important thing that I want to work on for fall prevention, as well as just overall making sure they're having a stronger level of coordination. You don't quite get that with machines. However, I do like to use machines to start to show them how to move, like how I want them to actually fold with their leg, or how I want them to use their arm in a certain way, because machines are very nice for that.

 

21:28

So for me, the biggest thing is, you know, progressing or adapting the exercises, the individual's ability. So if I feel like, you know, they're ready for exercises that require a higher degree of coordination, it's more free weight. If I'm understanding that they're not quite there, but they're definitely have the strength to, you know, move them around, I'm going to try to get them on the machines a bit more. In terms of like being set up, I mean.

 

21:58

You know, there's certain limits to each machine, but for the most part, they're well set up for everyone. There's a lot of adjustability because, you know, some people are taller, shorter, longer arms, shorter legs. So the machines themselves have a lot of adjustability. And that's why, as Ben mentioned earlier, like we love the light press machine. It's a great way to get the legs super strong, move a bunch of weight. That doesn't require the same level of like coordination right now with a heavy squad or something, but you can get those.

 

22:28

get those legs feeling like they're doing a nice heavy squat but in a nice controlled motion. So when you're a registered kinesiologist, you've done all the education, and like within that education is there something that, are there any courses that are geared toward working with people working with people with developmental disabilities or is it just a general education that way?

 

22:51

No, it's definitely more of a general education and even then I say it's a lot of like learning on the job.

 

22:58

Again, it's very hard to teach someone out of a textbook and in the classroom how to teach someone else how to move, how to, you know, how to do certain exercises. So that's where I graduated from SFU. I had the chance to work as a kinesiologist in a studio for two or three years as a personal trainer and as a kinesiologist. And that's where I kind of learned.

 

23:23

how to change exercises according to each person's ability. And as a kinesiologist, I work with a number of people from like ICBC who had motor vehicle accidents.

 

23:35

And that's kind of where my chance to really learn how to progress and regress exercises based on what they could do because they had physical limitations based on their pain or their injury. That's where it was really awesome for me to understand like how to progress and regress exercises to fit the individual. And I kind of carried that over when working with Ben and working with a couple of the other clients is how I can adapt exercise best for them.

 

24:03

I wish there was more coursework on how to work with people, but physically also how to work with people with disability. But any kind of coursework you would do, that would be on your own. I do know that there is like an online or virtual course that you can do that allows for individuals to have like autism exercise certification.

 

24:29

as well, but nothing like directly out of school in terms of working with people with disabilities. That's kind of something you have to do on your own. Yeah, I'm finding that. And have a chance. Yeah, I mean, I did a podcast with Michael Serrata, the guy who owns Serrata's Martial Arts Academy in Vancouver and Richmond, and he does a lot of work with people with developmental disabilities as well. If Ben, if you're interested, he does a really great service. And then what I found with him too is that...

 

24:57

Any training or instruction in that respect was something he had to do on his own, much like yourself. So it seems like there might be a growth industry, or a growth at least in the education system, when it comes to people with cognitive disabilities. Because there's a lot of people out there who could use that kind of service. Yeah, I think you're starting to see more and more of it too right now that independence is a lot more focused on. Yeah.

 

25:26

But yeah, I would say it's the same thing that Toronto said as well, with a lot of learning on my own and figuring out what, you know, how best I could do it, I guess, is what I've learned from that. Yeah, and I'm not saying that there's a silver bullet solution to that, but it just seems like with inclusion and community living being the driving force these days, which is great, you know, having more of that support through our education system might be a good thing.

 

25:55

Exactly and you know I'm solely in the background and working on trying to partner with like the different municipalities of trying to you know host because each of them have their own like Burnaby has adapted programs um each of them have their own and you know maybe getting them a little bit more.

 

26:11

attention or you know providing people with a little bit more insight how to use these resources so there's different municipalities are trying to offer them more um i think the biggest thing is people just don't know where to start you know they've never been in a gym before one it's very intimidating but two how do you learn to do all these exercises without someone trying to help you exactly exactly i mean even even i go to a gym and sometimes i don't know what i'm doing you know i do the best i can

 

26:38

But at the end of the day, here's the sort of sad reality is that hiring a personal trainer costs money. Yeah. And we all know that people with disabilities, their life already may cost more than a typically developed person. So that becomes an issue. Talk to me about how people can afford your services. Yeah. So again, so luckily I early on...

 

27:03

got some insight and help through CLBC, Community Living BC, and talking with them, individuals are eligible to use their respite funding if they're approved by CLBC for my services. So that's like one way that it can be cost effective for.

 

27:22

for people, which is super nice. I'm starting to slowly try to expand as well into like younger teens or sorry, older teens and they'll still be eligible for like autism funding. So getting approved for like autism funding units. The other ways for like paying for my services is I recently decided that I'm trying to do a new service and that's where I understand that people already have a bit of a healthcare team on it

 

27:52

own or they have already had respite workers. So I call it like my hands off approach and that's where I meet with someone just once to go over and assess.

 

28:03

how they move, how it's going, and then trying to set up like an online platform for them to use. So my example would be like, I have an online training tool, we meet once, I figure out, okay, here's what I feel like you could improve, here's how we can make it work. And then I use like an online coaching tool to set up workouts for them to do either on their own if they have the capability or with a current respite team they already have in place.

 

28:34

to make it as accessible for everyone as possible. So I'm even looking to do smaller group training classes throughout the city, in different municipalities, so people can come at maybe a slightly reduced rate. So I'm looking at that. And then I'm looking at the community health and safety services. So I'm looking at that. And then I'm looking at the community health and safety services.

 

29:02

um having yeah like like like i said like set up with community gyms or so community centers that already exist of having a service like this with other coaches that can do it as well so so they have the chance and i think like you said it's the movement for independence comes like just training people on figuring out or

 

29:23

training people on how they can help others approach this. So if there's other personal trainers out there that are trying to do something similar at their gym or the studio, how I can best direct clients towards that local gym or studio close to them. So, I mean, the possibilities are endless in terms of what Spectrum can do, but for me, it's just trying to provide my service to as many people as I can.

 

29:51

because I know how big of an impact it can have on on their lives. That's staying healthy. That's key. It's key for anybody. So how do people how do people reach you? So people can reach me easiest way to do it is through my website, which is MB spectrum health.com. And that way they can read all about my services. And on there is also my contact information, my email, my phone number, there's like an intake form there is

 

30:20

Um, there are some like referrals as well, or, you know, past clients, what they said about my service and what they've liked about it. The other way you could do it as well is I have some brochures that I printed off and dropped off around the city. I'm going to drop them off at the CLBC has them at each of their offices. I'm actually, hopefully to come go to DDA and drop off the brochures. Please do.

 

30:43

So there'll be some brochures around, but easiest way is to just to look me up online. That's again, mbsp And there's a website that has all my information there and my phone number. Awesome. I think that about wraps it up. Minderth and Ben, you have been listening to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. My guest today has been Minderth Hindlopen. Minderth is a heavily involved in the developmental disabilities community. He's a kinesiologist and coach for the Special Olympics PC.

 

31:12

He set up a mobile personal training business for people with developmental disabilities called MB Spectrum Health. He wants to help them reach their health and fitness goals and create a literal level playing fields for everyone. You can find more information at MBspectrumhealth.com along with Mind Dirt. Of course, there's one of his clients, Ben, today who loves hockey. He was here to help champion what Mind Dirt is doing. I thank you both for being here today. Thank you so much for having us.

 

31:42

Thanks Ben, thanks for listening, see you next time.