Moving Forward with the AlterG Treadmill

Anti-Gravity Treadmill at Wellspring

Transcript

Debbie Alt: The first time I was on the AlterG, I was just sold. I felt something that I'd been missing a long time and that was hope. I needed that. I needed to be able to do something again. I needed to be able to walk normal again and that machine, I can be normal just like everybody else.

Hi, my name is Debbie Alt and I've pretty much lived all my life in Mazomanie, Wisconsin. I have horses and was raising a young foal and that foal I grabbed and actually she reared up and came down and tore my Achilles in half. I was sent to a surgeon in Madison and that surgery failed and I did not get better after that. It was a year of agonizing pain and not being able to walk at all.

My physical therapist told me to go to Sauk Hospital and try Dr. Ertl. He fixed the Achilles. He had to fix brevis tendon and he did a modified Brostrom I believe is the word to keep my leg from flipping to side to side. It's not a surgery for the faint of heart because it's a lot of hard work to get through it. That's kind of where the AlterG came in.

I have gone more forward with that machine than anything I could ever possibly hope to. Basically, the AlterG enables you to feel like you're free again.

Those that have physical limitations, difficulty with surgery that you just can't get moving on yourself, the gravity part of it enables you to do things you couldn't even imagine. You can do lunges, we can do toe raises, we can do backwards walking. I don't have to put so much weight on it. It's more the machine doing the work for me. You don't feel your feet hitting the treadmill like you do on a regular treadmill.

We tried going on a treadmill and I couldn't do anything. My foot kept stubbing on the belt, pushing me forward into the machine. It wasn't possible. I can go at a 3.0 on that machine, whereas I have never been on a treadmill that I could go 3.0 just because of the way my leg has been and honestly, in my opinion, if somebody has surgery and is not using that machine, they're missing out on the best thing that could get them progressing faster.

It actually allows a person that maybe because of their weight cannot move as freely, it allows them to actually sweat and put in a hard workout.

So not only is it good for recovery, it's good for anybody that needs help with getting their fitness level higher. Anybody having any surgery really needs to get on that machine because it's a life changer. Gives people hope when you get on there that you can actually do this.

End Transcript

To schedule an AlterG^® session, please contact Wellspring at 608-643-7572.