The boxing coach who resets time for those with Parkinson’s disease
By Mary L. Dudy and Stephane Fitch
Marty Barrett trained to be a boxer and a coach. Then serendipity stepped in. Now he trains people with Parkinson’s disease in a spacious facility made possible by the generosity of Houston Texans defensive tackle Maliek Collins.
How did 12th Round Fit go from being a boxing gym to a training program for people with Parkinson’s?
I was sitting outside my first boxing gym in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona, when an older lady walked by and asked if I could work with people who have Parkinson’s disease. She wanted to bring her husband, Bob, in. I said: “I work with anybody!” Then I rushed upstairs to look up Parkinson’s.
How did you train him?
We taught him basic boxing. He could barely walk, but he loved it. Feeling competitive got his endorphins flowing. And he loved the camaraderie, especially the trash talking. Eventually his doctor called to ask me to stop training him. “It’s about quality of life,” he said. “I don’t want him to fall.” So I invited him to watch Bob jog.
That must have surprised Bob’s doctor.
Yes! His response was, “I call bullshit. If he can’t do it, never train him again. If he can, I’ll buy your gym any piece of equipment you want.” A week later an expensive boxing tower came on a delivery truck.
It’s easy to understand Bob’s doctor’s initial opposition. Boxing for Parkinson’s?
Boxing is all about coordination. It’s about controlling your speed, your timing and your rhythm. People with Parkinson’s disease lack dopamine, which is the chemical transmitter in your brain that helps coordinate your movements. The disease separates brain from motion. Your brain doesn’t tell your hand: “Don’t tremor.” You don’t have a good sense of how to time the rhythm of movements like walking. So we do things like bouncing a ball or playing patty-cake to get them back into their own rhythm.
So coaching a boxer is not so different from coaching a person with Parkinson’s?
Everything that I teach a boxer about the relevance of timing, I have to teach those with Parkinson’s. Now, getting a healthy boxer to understand how critical it is to efficiently map out those two or three minutes in the ring is straightforward. That fighter has to master when to turn the energy on and when to conserve it. They need to learn how to breathe. The same is true for people with Parkinson’s. Both groups are constantly challenged to control their timing.
How so?
I’ll give you an example from Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s career. I spent a lot of time with his father, Floyd Sr. — and he was preparing Junior to fight the MMA fighter Conor McGregor, a guy who is used to five-minute rounds. Floyd Senior understood the difference between knowing how to time yourself for 5 five-minute rounds versus 10 three-minute rounds. “We just have to time it perfect,” he said to Junior. So Junior bided his time. He let McGregor come in with big punches. He forced McGregor to dance to his rhythm. In the ninth round, seeing that McGregor was tired, Senior said, “You can go and get him anytime you want.” McGregor is in the ring with probably the most precise puncher in history. Junior is timing his punches perfectly. In the ring, he can control time. And the refs call the fight because they see that McGregor is going to get hurt — badly.
Fitness trainer Marty Barrett works with a client who has Parkinson’s disease.
But are those with Parkinson’s fighting battles they can win?
It is hard. You have to say to people, “You’re not going to be like you were. You’re going to be a different version of yourself.” Look at Kim [Marty points to an athletic, elegant middle-aged woman across the gym.] Kim was a volleyball player turned coach. See how she has her arms crossed? She does that to control the dyskinesia, the involuntary movements of Parkinson’s. But when Kim starts talking about her career in volleyball, she relaxes, and her symptoms momentarily disappear.
How does that happen?
Her confidence comes back with that memory, and that little bit of adrenaline stimulates the release of some dopamine. She self-medicates.
How do your Parkinson’s clients get along with the world-class athletes who work out here?
NFL player Javon Hargrave trains here in the offseason. He just signed a contract for $84 million. “I like to watch people come in and they’re stumbling,” he tells me. “Then 15 minutes later they’re walking by me, and they say, ‘Your big ass hasn’t done anything the whole time I was here.’” He laughs because he wants that. He needs that. There’s no other football players training at that time. He chooses to come in when the Parkinson’s clients are here. He says, ‘It’s real life. It’s impressive.’” And I tell him: “Talk to them about how to move their feet. You’ve got more in common with them than you think. People look at you and only see a famous athlete. People look at them and only see a Parkinson’s patient. You look at each other and see people.” This gym is a space for you.
When we think of Parkinson’s, most of us probably think of two famous figures: late boxer Muhammad Ali and actor Michael J. Fox. Everybody’s talking about the new documentary about Fox, “Still.”
The Muhammad Ali Center has invited me to their events. The Michael J. Fox Foundation has invited me to their all-star dinner and presentation. I’ve met with Michael. He and his foundation are actively funding research into understanding how noncontact boxing improves the lives of people with Parkinson’s.
The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life.” Do you agree?
I agree with Jobs. And I don’t fear death. I fear not being good at living. I was diagnosed with cancer last year. And for a long time, I didn't tell my Parkinson’s clients. I didn’t want them to worry or baby me. While I was having chemo, I’d go upstairs and lie down a lot. I was distracted and anxious. And then I told one of them, Brian, who said, “You don’t have the right to tell us that you’ll be a part of everything we do when you’re not willing to share with us. You say you care. Do you care enough to let us have our own feelings about what you are going through?” And now we are closer than ever and probably overshare!
What, in the end, can you really accomplish for a person with Parkinson’s?
We can’t get them more time or cure them. We can help them be people first and Parkinson’s patients second. And we can make the time they have left better.
As a professor of English literature, Mary L. Dudy’s conversations with Shakespeare required her to unwind centuries of scholarly work. As a journalist, Stephane Fitch spent two decades battling clocks ticking down to tight deadlines. Read more about them or this series of interviews about time.