I have been training with Esther since February 2016. Over the course of my 54 years, I've had short periods of regular exercise but mostly I managed my health with what I ate (or didn’t eat). Somewhere between starting treatment and having surgery for breast cancer, I decided to put my health at the top of my priority list and sought advice from the integrative medicine department at my cancer center. That’s how I found Esther…she had worked with patients just like me at the cancer center and was now working independently—and here’s the kicker, she was only a few miles from where I lived.

Esther came to see me before surgery, so she could assess my range of motion and generally my body’s capabilities in its current state. After I had surgery and was cleared for all activity, we began working together. And here’s the thing: Esther has seamlessly navigated my training through significant range of motion limitations, through subsequent surgeries on very different areas of my body as well as through good days, bad days, confidence and lack thereof. She is incredibly supportive and her workouts are tremendously challenging. The thing is, I look forward to every one of our training sessions and how amazing I feel after each one. I credit Esther for the way I feel about my body: strong, healthy, resilient.

Incredibly, in 9+ years of nearly uninterrupted (surgeries excepted) training with Esther, I have never had a duplicate workout. Never. Esther is always creating new exercises, integrating cardio and challenging me to do a little more on the days in between our workouts. I feel that Esther’s training is built on strength, cardiovascular capacity and mobility. That last one, I think, is especially unique to Esther. As I get older, that mobility keeps me from injury — key if I’m going to keep moving through the next decades of life.