SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Don't let her walker or silver hair fool you. Or that she has battled Parkinson's Disease for 16 years.
Patricia Sundstrom can pack a punch.
"You are used to feeling like you are getting worse," she said, following a boxing workout. "And this, it feels like you are getting better. And that is big."
Sundstrom was among the first students to sign up for The Bodysmith's Rock Steady Boxing program, a non-contact boxing fitness class for people with Parkinson's. Classes are tailored to meet the needs of clients and different levels are offered to accommodate varying degrees of the disease.
Susan Gilmore is one of three certified Rock Steady Boxing instructors at The Bodysmith.
"It's really life-changing for us. We see their progress," Gilmore said. "They say, 'I feel like I'm getting my life back.'"
Sundstrom nodded.
"I had gotten to the point where I would not go out to lunch with people," she said. "It was just too hard, too hard to manipulate the knife and fork and the sandwich or to chew.
"Last week I went out to lunch and I didn't think about it."
Mark Overby, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's last year, said he is also getting his life back.
Overby said he hadn't been able to play a round of golf in three years. Since taking Rock Steady boxing classes, he's strong enough to enjoy the sport again.
"It's the small things. It felt great," he said. "I know it's helping. It forces me to concentrate. Concentrating is a problem.
"There is something about the activity and what you do, it just makes me feel the best I've felt in three years."
Overby and Sundstrom agree there is something about hitting a boxing bag - their arms crossing the midline of their body - that improves coordination and balance.
There's more than just the boxing component to the classes, reports the Springfield News-Leader (http://sgfnow.co/28Zeej8 ). There's stretching, balance moves, core work, weights, foot and leg work, and shouting exercises. Each exercise is designed to combat a specific symptom of the disease.
For Sundstrom, she and her instructor spend much of the time doing walking and marching exercises to help lengthen her gait and help with balance and stability.
Overby, whose disease is less advanced, spends more time punching the bags and beating a large tire with a baseball bat.
Watching Overby and Gilmore side-skip across the room, tossing a weighted ball back and forth, Coach Polly Brandman smiled.
"That forces you to be aware of your surroundings," Brandman explained. "Look how intense the workouts are. This would push anybody."
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About RockSteady Boxing
Rock Steady Boxing was founded in 2006 by a former Indiana prosecutor, Scott C. Newman, who has Parkinson's.
According to the Rock Steady website, the seed for what would eventually become Rock Steady Boxing was planted when Newman began intense, one-on-one, boxing training just a few years after he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's at the age of 40.
Newman witnessed the dramatic improvement in his physical health, agility and daily functioning through the intense and high-energy workouts. Newman's quality of life improved dramatically in a short time due to his fighting back against Parkinson's disease, the website says. Newman opened a small gym and boxing ring in a donated corner of a corporate employee gym as Rock Steady's first home.
Since then, about 140 affiliate studios have opened worldwide.
Though participants have reported anecdotal success for years, new research by the University of Indianapolis supports the notion that people with Parkinson's disease who participate in boxing training maintain greater physical ability and quality of life than those who participate in other modes of exercise.
The study found that boxers demonstrated significantly better balance and walking function over time, as well as greater distance on a functional reach test, compared to people who chose other forms of exercise.
The key may not be boxing per se, but instead the unique combination of activities that are common to boxing training, Professor Stephanie Combs-Miller said in a release from the university. The Rock Steady Boxing program is "multimodal" she said, enhancing strength, agility, endurance, flexibility and other positive traits.
"I think it's the collection of all these elements that is working for these people," she said. "People don't necessarily have to put on boxing gloves."
Shauna Smith, owner of The BodySmith, signed on to be a Rock Steady Boxing affiliate last year, traveled to Indianapolis for training and started her program this spring.
"Even though we started with small numbers, we've seen some great progress very quickly, which is encouraging," Smith said. "It's really rewarding for everyone involved."
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com