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Dowagiac’s Walter Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

Dowagiac’s Walter Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

Dowagiac’s Walter Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

Dowagiac’s Walter Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

Dowagiac’s Walter Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

DOWAGIAC — Every Tuesday and Thursday, the exercise room at Front Street Crossing springs to life, with sounds of boxing gloves hitting pads echoing through the halls. The instructor holding the pads, Walter Swann, can be heard issuing commands “One-two, one-two,” letting his trainee know when to strike.

Swann, a former professional boxer and U.S. Navy veteran, has spent more than 25 years sharing his boxing knowledge with the people of Dowagiac through various programs in the community. Recently, Swann began Parkinson’s Power Punchers, a program he leads Tuesdays and Thursdays at Front Street Crossing that takes participants through boxing exercises that help to address Parkinson’s disease – a chronic, progressive brain disorder that affects movement and other parts of the body. The exercises help address symptoms such as tremor, balance, memory, posture and strength, as well as increasing fitness levels.

“It helps them in their mobility to get up and to respond to commands,” Swann said. “Like ‘one-two, one-two.’ They respond to that and it works with their mind and they can understand better how to control their movements. It’s so fulfilling to have it and do fun things with it. It’s not intimidating – it’s a program that really works.”

Parkinson’s Power Punchers typically lasts about one hour and consists of stretches and warm-up exercises to prepare the body for the workout and to avoid injury, punching speed bags to help improve coordination and posture as well as footwork exercises. Vocal exercises are incorporated into the workout to help with any voice disorder symptoms of Parkinson’s.

“(Parkinson’s) is not only movement and having a tremor, that’s really only a part of it,” said Carol Loyer, a regular at Parkinson’s Power Puchers. “There are a lot of other medical issues that can come up with it. There are problems with voice and with speaking. He encourages us to vocalize while we’re doing that. There are problems in cognition. There are problems with coordination and balance and shouting out what order we’re doing things helps with our memory and causation as far as being able to function better, so that helps us function better in society. It actually affects many other organ systems but the main one that people see is the tremor.”

There are also group exercises that focus on socialization and community in each class. Participants are encouraged to bring in newspaper and magazine articles to share regarding Parkinson’s and fitness.

“Coach is an inspiration,” Loyer said. “He keeps us going, we have a great sense of community here and he helps us to focus on what we can do. It means a lot – when something is fun, you pursue it. If it’s a drag, you’re just going to drop it and it’s so important for Parkinson’s patients to move. He inspires us to move and keep going. It’s a community. We share different sources of information here. It’s really a support group, in addition to being a boxing class. He inspires us to keep doing what we can do and not to focus on the past and that really helps.”

“It helps to do the exercises but also the people you’re around – communicating, swapping articles that you might find in a magazine or in a health journal, or whatever it could be and we pass it along and help everybody out the best we can,” added Jim Brosnan. “We’re all equals.”

For Loyer and her classmates, Swann’s class is an activity they look forward to attending.

“There are a lot of other things that are offered here, but this is the most fun thing of my week and I go to a bunch of different exercise classes,” Loyer said. “I keep coming because this is the most fun thing of the week and that keeps you going.”

Called to serve

Swann served in the Navy from 1962 to 1966 before moving to Long Beach, California, where he went to work at the naval shipyard there. In 1996, he retired from the shipyard and moved to Dowagiac with his wife Alice, in order to help take care of her mother. While in Dowagiac, Swann has given boxing lessons at Southwestern Michigan College, the Cass County Council on Aging Front Street Crossing facility and the Fit Stop 24 location in downtown Dowagiac.

While Swann has been retired for nearly 30 years, he still enjoys working on projects and engaging the area’s youth and elderly. It is what keeps him going.

“I realized my age and I realized that people in my age bracket don’t have a lot of people that they associate with and talk to,” Swann said. “It’s just in my spirit that I have to look out for other people. I love working with people – I’m a people person and I want to do all I can to help as many people as I can in any way I can. They don’t have to box, we can just sit and talk and do exercise and do some push ups or whatever they want to do. It’s what I love doing. You have to want to give back.”

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