We recently connected with Devon Palermo and have shared our conversation below.
Devon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
While working in physical rehabilitation as a licensed physical therapist assistant I came across a spinal cord injury patient soon to be prematurely discharged due to insurance limitations at a very critical time in her rehabilitation phase. With my background in personal training she and I agreed to focus on exercises outside of the rehabilitation setting that would maintain her strength and fitness level until her insurance kicked back in. We worked together 2-3 times a week for a couple of months in her home and after my therapy clinic hours. Once insurance resumed, and she returned to PT her evaluating therapist noted that not only did she not regress, she had actually improved in strength and function creating new opportunities for goals to be worked on.
This experience set in motion a goal to establish adaptive fitness training services to aide in bridging the gap from therapy to community fitness.
We did this by partnering with the local rehabilitation hospital and establishing their adaptive fitness programming while also opening up our very own fully accessible adaptive fitness gym.
Since this time our practice has been consistently serving the adaptive fitness community with group classes, virtual classes, one on one sessions and more with clients local to us, across the us and even internationally.
We have become providers of adaptive fitness education to medical fitness professionals and are even working to build a new adaptive sport.
One of the biggest challenges initially is the pipeline for referrals, when we first started the majority of our work was out of the trunk of a car. Presenting at support groups, speaking at health fairs, and leading 5k warm ups helped us to establish a following of folks who trusted us wanted to refer to
us.
While I do believe these speaking engagements were valuable opportunities, I also feel like it would have been ok to pass on some of the offers to speak. Especially those that maybe don’t target the niche that you are looking to work with.
At one point any offer to present I would take, that could easily burn you out. I found later in that saying no to certain opportunities and putting more focus into the opportunities that did align helped to establish deeper bonds with more trust and value.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Devon Palermo, I am the founder and director of DPI Adaptive Fitness a fully accessible adaptive fitness gym for people living with and/or recovering from injury or illness. While my career started in the physical therapy world my focus shifted into safe and effective fitness for all abilities following traditional rehabilitation due to the lack of services available for this population with the understanding and dedication to safe training.
I am proud to have built a strong community of dedicated adaptive trainers and clients focused on physical and mental health and all of the progress that comes with it.
We are in our 11th year of serving the community in person and virtually, our team has co-founded a non profit dedicated to serving the community even more with free classes and community events, and we are spearheading the growth of adaptive boxing as a new adaptive sport in the USA.
I am proud of team at DPI Adaptive Fitness,
The partners we work with, and the amazing community we serve.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2019 after returning from a conference where I was selected to speak and educate on adaptive fitness as well as being nominated for a medical fitness award. Covid hit. All physical interaction became nonexistent and our profession is 100% hands on, especially in adaptive fitness.
Our pivot to keep our clients healthy and engaged and keep our business thriving was a shift to a virtual platform.
We shifted to unique adaptive fitness programming for our adaptive fitness gym, the local rehab hospital, and was able to upstart a new virtual program that began to serve clients worldwide. A silver lining indeed
Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?
After unsuccessfully applying for business loans, my focus shifted to making my vision happen no matter what. I would search for and find fitness equipment that suited the adaptive fitness clients I had, I would save up and purchase often large pieces of equipment and store them in my garage or home. When I was ready I used all of my own savings to front expenses to open the doors of DPI Adaptive Fitness and slowly built a team and clientele around the gym that helped to expand it to the great community and adaptive gym that it now is
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Dpiadaptivefitness.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dpiadaptivefitness?igsh=bHNmaWJqMXFlbWNo&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1HmWzAmAfd/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adaptivefitnessspecialist–devon-dpi?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@dpiadaptivefitness5174?si=OkWYnvDzX67gFCxV
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/dpi_adaptive_boxing_club?igsh=MWIzc3Rua2FkNGZnZw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
Image Credits
Christopher Crews
Devon Palermo