Mind, body &#38; bike

Mind, body & bike

Article by: STEPHEN REGENOLD
Updated: November 22, 2009 - 4:12 PM

Athletic consultations range from bike fittings to neuromuscular massage at the Fix Studio, where tools often reserved for Olympians are available to anyone.

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Sophie St Jacques and Larry Foss, both have extensive bicycling credentials that include the national cycling team and a decade of pro bike racing.

Photo: Tom Wallace, Star Tribune

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A red laser flits on my knee. Bike pedals spin. Larry Foss, founder of the Fix Studio in Minneapolis, adjusts a camera and aims a light at my leg.

"Kick it up a notch," he shouts.

It is a Saturday morning, quiet in the Warehouse District. But upstairs at Fix, where Foss and his wife, Sophie St-Jacques, opened shop in 2008, rock music rings from speakers mounted on the walls.

As exercise studios go, Fix does not fit an established mold. The facility, a loftlike space with high ceilings and varnished floors, contains curtained massage rooms, a treadmill, yoga mats, fans and bike trainers aligned in front of computer screens.

There are rubber gloves in a box. Cotton balls in a jar are ready to swathe blood after Foss pricks your finger in a threshold test.

"They have a very holistic approach to fitness," said Bob Trench, 51, an amateur bike racer and advertising executive from Shorewood.

From joint alignment to bike shoes, Foss and St-Jacques attempt to focus on the entire system that makes up an athlete, from nutrition to fitness regimen to gear.

Their tools range from high-tech to tried-and-true, yoga poses to a virtual-reality race course displayed on a computer screen. Services, which are purchased à la carte, include running-gait analysis tests, video-based bike-position fitting, blood-lactate threshold tests, indoor cycling training classes, nutrition plans, therapeutic massage, stretching classes and race-strategy techniques.

"They have a great understanding of all endurance sports," said Carolyn Bramante, a Minneapolis biathlete who competed in the 2006 Olympic Games.

She began working with Fix (www.thefixstudio.com) two months ago for massage, stretching and nutrition consultations while preparing for Olympic trials this winter in Germany.

"Larry knows the training and travel schedule of a national team and he knows exactly the kind of stress on the body that it can produce," she said.

Experience is a distinguisher at Fix. St-Jacques, who grew up in Montreal, raced professionally for years, including as a member of the Canadian Olympic National Cycling Team. Foss has certifications from USA Cycling to coach. For a decade, he traveled with Olympic athletes and professional road-cycling teams as an exercise-massage therapist and in management positions.

Foss saw athletes from his teams win gold, silver and bronze medals at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

The couple, married a year ago, work long hours in the 3,000-square-foot studio on Washington Avenue. Foss said his career is his life: "I have a hard time separating the two."

In October, I met with Foss and St-Jacques for a fitness evaluation, including a blood test that assessed my tolerance during high-output athletics. Standing beside a treadmill, Foss pulled on a rubber glove and grabbed a needle.

"Let's hit 170," he said, referencing a heart-rate target.

I ran and sweated, my heart and lungs ascending the aerobic ladder. Foss pointed at a chart with 10 categories of "perceived exertion." He motioned toward No. 9 on the scale, marked "Really, Really Hard."

"You about here?" he asked.

Then Foss pricked my finger with a needle, feeding a blood drop to a handheld meter. He later calculated my lactate-threshold level to formulate a heart rate-based fitness plan.

My next session at Fix, in early November, included a bike fitting. But St-Jacques had me face down on a massage table before I put my bike shoes on.

"We need to evaluate your body," she said.

St-Jacques, who has a college degree in athletic therapy, combines personal athletics experience with book knowledge. Her hands worked down my spine, fingers digging in. She noted a tightness in my left hip and used a therapeutic technique to alleviate the stress.

On a bike trainer, Foss adjusted a laser level and aimed a video camera. He recorded my pedal strokes for playback on a screen, stopped frames distilling motions in frozen time.

"Look at that left knee dip," Foss said, a pen touching the monitor's glass.

A consultation with Foss and St-Jacques focuses first on the body, second on the equipment at hand. On the bike, Foss said he could add a shim to my left shoe to correct the knee wobble.

"But first we should try and again adjust that hip," he said.

St-Jacques looked back at the massage table. She mentioned setting up a session for a "full musculoskeletal evaluation."

She said, "We need to get your body in line before you get back on the bike."

Stephen Regenold writes about outdoors gear at www.gearjunkie.com.

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