MELT Stories: MELT Got Me Over the Finish Line
As a longtime ballet, tap, and jazz dancer, Meegan Descheneaux had put her body through a lifetime of high-impact activities, which was causing severe pain in her lower legs.
But Meegan, who was working full time as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor, took a MELT Method workshop with creator Sue Hitzmann and immediately felt changes in her body.
“I couldn’t believe it at first – all Sue was asking us to do was step on a little ball and move around a little bit,” she says. “But I immediately felt a difference throughout my whole body. I resonated with everything Sue was saying. I had finally found the missing link to complete health.”
Meegan felt so good after that initial experience that she immediately wanted to become a MELT Instructor so she signed up for the next instructor training on the calendar.
The changes in her body after the training were so positive that Meegan decided to register for a 2010 triathlon in New York City that consisted of a 1500-meter swim, 40-kilometer bike, and 10-kilometer run. This is impressive for anyone, but Meegan had never run more than 3 miles (about 5 kilometers) at a time, had never tried to clip into a set of racing pedals on a bicycle, and didn’t even know how to swim freestyle, let alone face the open water of the Hudson River.
MELT got her through the training and competition with flying colors.
“The other competitors were talking about how sore they were,” she says. “But I really did feel great. It was the MELTing, not the stretching. I’m a dancer, so I’m pretty flexible, but you can only stretch so much. It was definitely MELTing every day that helped me recover.”
Even a bike crash that happened when she was training in Central Park and the physical trauma of falling on her hip (because she was unable to unclip from her bike initially) weren’t major setbacks. Meegan swears that regular, consistent MELTing has not only kept the pain in her lower legs at bay, it has allowed her to tap into her full potential as an athlete because it made her more in tune with her body and more aware of her movement and breathing.
Today Meegan is a MELT Master Trainer, teaching other professionals how to teach MELT. She recently moved from New York City to Orlando, Florida, where she continues to defy expectations: “I have a stronger core and better timing in my muscles than some of those ripped fitness models. I am breaking the myth in fitness that skinny equals strong, fit, and stable.”