Chin Up Journal Sentinel reporter Lori Nickel writes about health and fitness for the average person. SHARE

By of the

For Jimmy Oligny, an injury is a lot more than an inconvenience. It’s a missed work opportunity.

After he suffered a badly sprained ankle last year, he needed to make it back to full strength as quickly as possible for his job. His physical therapist suggested a relatively new and certainly different piece of equipment: The AlterG, an antigravity treadmill.

And it worked.

Oligny painfully limped in to the Aurora Sports Medicine Institute in downtown Milwaukee, where he could suit up for the AlterG to work on balance exercises and regain his strength because he was only putting a fraction of his body weight on the ankle.

It allowed the Milwaukee Admirals defenseman to get back on the ice faster than expected.

And now Aurora is making this machine available to the public.

The AlterG looks like a standard treadmill for the most part, but the area above the running belt is surrounded by a thick, clear plastic bubble encasing the bottom half of the body. Once the runner puts on the AlterG’s running shorts, steps inside and zips the seal closed, the chamber becomes inflated.

This allows AlterG runners or walkers to adjust and reduce the amount of weight they are putting on their legs, knees, ankles and joints. For example, the 205-pound Oligny began his rehabilitation with only about 60% of his body weight, or about 120 pounds. It was gradually increased in 5% increments as he got stronger.



(Story continues after this short video on Oligny demononstrating how to walk on the AlterG.)

video player to embed in JSonline stories

Oligny’s ankle was in pretty bad shape last season: swollen, painful and in a boot. He missed 10 games. It was hard for him to imagine as he hobbled into rehab that he would hop on a treadmill.

“I thought it was interesting,” he said. “I wanted to try it. I was a little bit hesitant — because I really couldn’t put weight on my leg.

“And then on this (AlterG), all of a sudden I could put some weight on it. It felt weird at first.”

He trusted Carol Grgic, the Admirals’ physical therapist, and she knew it wasn’t running he needed but balance. To a hockey player, balance, ankle strength and flexibility are everything.

“You have to change direction all the time, go backward, go forward,” said Oligny.

But typical balance exercises on a gym floor were impossible.

“We couldn’t do that because he really couldn’t put all his weight on his leg,” Grgic said. “The fact that he was walking with a limp kind of causes other muscles to shut down and other areas to get tight. Everything kind of goes haywire.

“The main reason we put him in the AlterG was to normalize his walking pattern and to work on his balance in that altered gravity state, just by standing.”

His exercises were monitored in real time on a video screen above the treadmill dashboard so that both

Oligny and Grgic could make sure he was standing on one leg and doing little squats and toe raises correctly.

“Just doing that, your body has to make a lot of little adjustments in your feet, in your ankle, in all those muscles, all the way up to the hips,” said Grgic. “There was no way he could work on that without being in here.”

Fatigued at first, Oligny got stronger and returned to the ice — and he thinks he recovered faster because of the AlterG.

“For sure,” said Oligny. “There were a lot of guys, my teammates, that wanted to try it.”

The idea of running with a few less pounds sounds good for training too. Aurora used the AlterG mostly for therapy in the past but is starting to open it up to athletes who want to improve their performance.

There aren’t many of these treadmills around for the public to use — the Milwaukee Bucks and Marquette University each have one — but Aurora Sports Medicine Institute has a second one in Brookfield. A single session is $25, three sessions are $50 and 10 are $150, and they’re used for performance as well.

The runner can work on cadence, gate, balance, turnover speed, hip and foot placement to improve stride and become more efficient.

“That improves your stride, which makes you more efficient,” said Cathy Dailey, from Aurora’s Marketing and Business Development. “If you’re fighting your body, you’re efficiency drops down, you don’t get that endurance that you need for longer races.

“If you want to build your endurance up, you may say, I can’t do the seven miles — but maybe I could do the seven miles at 80% of my body weight.”





ON OPRAH AND WEIGHT WATCHERS : This essay is really good, well written, funny and worth a read. Written by Caissie St.Onge, a television writer and producer who has worked with David Letterman, Rosie O'Donnell, Graham Norton, Joan Rivers, Bette Midler, and Paul F. Tompkins. Currently she is the co-executive producer of Watch What Happens Live! with Andy Cohen on Bravo. "If Oprah can't do permanent lifelong weight loss, maybe it can't be done."

FORTUNE ARTICLE : Here's why women who play sports are more successful. "In fact, of the 400 women surveyed, 75% said that a candidate’s background in sports positively influenced their decision to hire them. These women put a particular premium on female athletes because they know — very personally — how participating in sports can impact work ethic."

IN-N-OUT BURGER : This is what Adele tweeted after her appearance at the Grammy's last Monday night - where the sound was a little off: "The piano mics fell on to the piano strings, that's what the guitar sound was. It made it sound out of tune. (Expletive) happens. ... Because of it though... I'm treating myself to an in n out. So maybe it was worth it."

THE GREAT MILWAUKEE PI RUN : For the number 3.14 etc., and there will be pie at the finish line of this 5K run and walk. Boerner Botanical Gardens March 12. Click here for more info. Also, check out the blog posts by Silver Circle Sports here - for runners and athletes alike. Good information.



CANCER WALKS: May 7, for ProHealth Care, in Oconomowoc, Mukwonago and Waukesha. Click here for more information.

RAGNAR RELAY : A Madison to Chicago, 192-mile relay race for running teams of about 12 people each. June 10-11. Each runner can expect to run three legs of anywhere from 3 to 12 miles (you pick the distance and the degree of difficulty for the run). This is supposed to be a memorable, team-building event according to past participants. Click here for more information and to register your Ragnar team.

NORTH FACE ENDURANCE CHALLENGE : The North Face Endurance Challenge is back, Sept. 16-17 on the Ice Age Trail in Kettle Moraine - and Chin Up readers have been offered a discounted rate. Go to this link - and enter for 15% discount code: D30LNWI15. The distances: 50 miles, 50K, marathon, marathon relay, kids run on Saturday; Half marathon, 10K, 5K, kid’s run on Sunday. This is a beautiful trail run, but everything is well marked and staffed by volunteers.

WHITE DEER TRIATHLON : The White Deer Triathlon is May 21 in Boulder Junction, Wis. and this triathlon is different - you get to paddle, instead of swim. The course: 3-kilometer (1.9 miles) canoe/kayak/stand up paddleboard on Boulder Lake to Camp Manito-wish YMCA; 23-kilometer (14.3 miles) bike ride on Boulder Junction’s rustic roads; and 6.5-kilometer (4 miles) run on roads and trails in the woods of Boulder Junction ending at the new Boulder Junction Community Center building. For more information, here are links to key websites: White Deer Triathlon. Click here to register. And check out Boulder Junction, White Birch Village Resort and Boulder Bear Motor Lodge.

TRAINING FOR A TRI : Thanks to Tony Becker of Fitness Together in Wauwatosa for the advice this week on training for a first-ever triathlon, the White Deer.

I asked Tony how to train for the kayaking portion when all I have is a rowing machine at the gym (and it is still winter): "I love triathlons and the different variables it adds to your training regimen. I've competed in many and the swimming is the common obstacle for most people. These alternative solutions to the swim make sense:



"As far as the training, these are common obstacles for Wisconsinites that have to deal with the Northern climate until it's triathlon season. The typical response for training is the best way to get better at a specific skill is to practice more and more of that skill. (Essentially, to get better and more prepared for kayaking, doing actual kayaking is the best way to prepare for the event.) There are local pools where people can rent kayaks and practice on actual water conditions.



"For those that don't have this access, or time, the gym is a perfect place to mimic this activity. Kayaking puts a focus on using core strength (primarily oblique rotational strength and endurance), and upper body pulling strength (back and bicep strength and endurance). The rowing machine does offer the second half of this by utilizing multiple pulling muscles to complete the movement. For an event like this, 25-30 minutes for 3 times a week on a rowing machine would give you a good base to be able to complete this event successfully. To incorporate the core (oblique) component, rotational exercises would work best. A few examples would be: russian twists, windshield wipers, Med Ball rotational throws, cable up and down chops. Cable up chops....and down chops....that way you get both internal and external obliques activated."

FIGHT FOR AIR CLIMB : The American Lung Association's Fight For Air Climb is March 19 at the U.S. Bank in downtown Milwaukee. The climb is 1,034 stairs, or 47 flights. Here's the preview story from last year - and the blog post from the Climb in 2015. There's plenty of time to sign up and train for this worthwhile fundraiser. I will post a short video about the climb for the next several weeks. In this video, we meet 85-year-old John Mulhern at a practice climb last Saturday. I asked him if I would see him at the real climb on March 19 and he said, "Yes. If I'm still alive!":

video player to embed in JSonline stories

Twitter: @LoriNickel

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChinUpLoriNickel