To our amazing clients, family, fans, and friends,
Happy summer! We hope our annual summer letter finds you well. June 6thmarked four years for us in our current office, so as we do every year, we would like to take a few minutes and recap the major highlights that happened during it.
This past year was extremely eventful, to say the least. To start, Julie began the two-year Muscle Activation Techniques® MATRx® Internship at MAT® Headquarters in Colorado, during which she will be learning the highest level of MAT®. After becoming certified in the MATRx® process for the feet and hands in February of 2018, Julie took the next step towards attaining her certification for the entire body last summer. She has completed the first year of it and is scheduled to graduate from the program in the summer of 2020.
One of the best parts about Julie enrolling in the MATRx® Internship is that Charlie gets to go and assist the instruction of the classes, led by Greg Roskopf himself, which take place every quarter. Additionally, they get to spend time with some great MAT® colleagues and friends from all over the globe, including three others from Chicago. We are very excited to soon be one of 13 facilities worldwide to have multiple certified MATRx® Full Body specialists.
Julie also took steps to start instructing for the Resistance Training Specialist™ (RTS™) program by heading to Oklahoma City back in December to attend a three-and-a-half day instructor course. She is very excited to start the process of getting RTS™ classes up and running in the Chicago suburbs, and possibly even at MAS!
In addition to assisting the classes Julie is in, Charlie has been continuing his own education with the MATRx® skillset, attending multiple review courses for MATRx® Full Body specialists as well as receiving tutoring from fellow MATRx® colleagues when he frequents MAT® headquarters. He has continued to teach for the MAT® educational program, and just recently became qualified to teach the practical labs for the MAT® online program.
Our weekly podcast, Exercise Is Health, has continued to grow by leaps and bounds. During our first year we had just over 10,000 downloads of our episodes, and so far this year we have already had over 11,500! We greatly enjoy putting out content on this platform every week. One of the coolest things is when we travel to different areas of the country and meet new colleagues and students who tell us how much they enjoy our podcast. We look forward to continuing to spread the message of the importance of exercise for your quality of life, health, and longevity through all of our content and our work.
We started the process of selling some of our Keiser equipment to interested buyers and are still pursuing that, although not with a great sense of urgency. We did, however, add six new pieces of equipment to our facility, purchasing a leg press, back extension machine, adjustable back extension bench, lateral raise machine, chest press machine, and chest-supported row machine near the end of 2018. Each of these pieces has become valuable staples in our clients’ workouts with us at MAS.
One of our new online ventures during the past 12 months was the addition of customized exercise programming for individuals who are looking to exercise on their own. The program fist started out as Charlie’s Fit4T1D project, where he would teach Type 1 Diabetics how to exercise appropriately to better-manage their blood glucose levels. After that unveiled in early September 2018, the addition of our Virtual Membership Program came about. With our Virtual Membership Program, we have been able to provide customized exercise guidance to people all over the world, helping them to exercise in a safe and appropriate manner for their body and goals. We are excited about continuing to grow this program over the next 12 months.
Back in October of 2018, Muscle Activation Schaumburg was nominated as a finalist for the Schaumburg Business Association’s Business of the Year award at the SBA’s annual Toast of Schaumburg gala. While Team MAS did not take home the title in 2018, it was a great honor to be recognized by the SBA membership for the work we are doing in the community. Julie and Charlie continue to serve on the Ambassador Committee for the SBA, and Julie has entered her second year sitting on the SBA’s board of directors. She was even invited to be part of the board’s executive committee, which she happily accepted and has been serving on since the start of 2019.
Charlie began doing volunteer work with a local sports performance non-for-profit called DEA Nation, too. DEA Nation provides sports performance services to many high school and middle school athletes in the Northwest Suburbs, helping kids not only reach their athletic potential, but helping to ensure they continue to do well in school as well as socially. During the winter months, Charlie would volunteer two Saturday afternoons each month to work on the athletes at DEA Nation with MAT®.
Finally, without question, one of the biggest business-related things that happened for us here at Muscle Activation Schaumburg over the past year was the Schaumburg Health Summit. The Schaumburg Health Summit was an event that Julie and Charlie created, organized, and funded themselves to help spread the message of health to the Schaumburg community as well as provide exposure to many amazing local health professionals and organizations. The event turned out great with 70 people in attendance, 9 vendors, 11 speakers, and amazing food and music. We even had one attendee that came all the way from Pittsburgh! We are very excited to continue to bring this event to Schaumburg every year to help us spread our belief that your health is your most valuable asset.
Thank you for continuing to support, follow, and like our content and us. January of 2019 marked five years total in business for us here at MAS. It has truly been a privilege to be able to serve you and our community during this time and we look forward to doing so for many years to come.
