Darcy Adams Wellness

12/31/2025

I have chosen to take a significant break from social media in 2026. If you want to reach me, my website is www.darcyadams.com.

I want to focus more of my time on helping women who want to feel strong after recovering from injury.

I'll still be reminding my clients to move, and also to rest their bodies, minds and spirits in order to be resilient and ready for what life throws their way.

I want to do my part to help women feel the best they can so that they can change the world in their own unique way!

I wish you the very best in 2026.

Darcy Adams Wellness provides rehab focused movement and fitness for people recovering from injury and working to prevent future injuries. She provides a whole body, integrative approach to healing. Small group classes and individual personal training or private sessions available.

09/19/2025

I'm excited to host another FREE WORKSHOP for you!

How to stay active, strong and stable and move confidently as you age!

Friday October 3 from 11am-12:30pm in Oak Park

Register here: www.darcyadams.com/workshop

I love working with women are ready to feel free and strong and able to do the activities they love.

This workshop is for you if:
💪 You want to feel more free in your body.
💪 You don’t want to wait too long to get strong and then regret it.
💪 You're active, but really want to make sure you're doing things “correctly.”
💪 You want to be able to get back to hiking or skiing or weight lifting or (insert your favorite activity here) without fear of getting hurt.
💪 You want to keep going as long as you can!

One of my clients had this to say after a few weeks of working with her:
"I already feel stronger and more flexible after working through the beginning of this program. I am glad I addressed these issues before jumping back into a more intense physical routine. I am more in tune with what's happening in my body."

I would love to see you at the Free Workshop on Friday 10/3 at 11am!

www.darcyadams.com/workshop

I hope to see you there. 💚

04/06/2025

How do your hips move when you walk?

Do they sway a lot side to side?
Do they shift one way but not the other?
Maybe they’re pretty controlled and they don’t sway at all.

Paying attention to how your hips move when you walk can teach you a lot about your pelvic floor.

The most common hip movement pattern I see when assessing the gait cycle of my clients is not moving their hips at all.

When I draw their awareness to this, most of them recall a story about how they were told they shouldn’t be too sexy.

Recently a client remembered the name of the mean girl in elementary school who had made fun of her for trying to get all the boys attention by swinging her hips when she walked. (She wasn't trying to attract attention. She was just walking.)

As a result of this ridicule, she consciously stopped moving her hips and built up stiffness not just in her hips but in her low back, and many other areas of her body.

These kinds of stories break my heart.

Our bodies are meant to move freely when we walk.

Every time we take a step our bodies move in a complicated and coordinated sequence that is amazingly beneficial for every major joint as well as our brains. When we shut down a portion of this movement there are ripple effects through our whole body and our neurology.

These ripple effects can lead to injuries in areas seemingly “unrelated” to our hip movement while we walk. Restricted hip movement can cause ankle injuries as well as neck pain (to name two).

Nothing about our human body is simple.

There is no one-size-fits all approach to movement and fitness.

Your body is unique and building the awareness of how your body moves is incredibly empowering and helpful for every future activity that you want to do.

I help my clients draw awareness of their movement patterns and give them the tools that they need to bring their bodies into balance for more efficient movement in the activities that they love.

If you're interested in building more strength, mobility and balance in your body, and addressing some of your movement patterns, comment below or DM me. I would love to chat!

(Photo of my two favorite walkers enjoying an orchard in Wisconsin 💚)

10/18/2024

I have a client named Marcia (not her real name) who came to me because she had recently discovered that she had pelvic organ prolapse. She had never met anyone with prolapse and she felt anxious and vulnerable and didn’t know where to turn.

She felt like her insides were falling out of her body. It affected her daily walks with her dog, her ability to cook meals for people in her community, and her consistent yoga practice.

She was a yoga teacher with lots of training related to her body and fitness. She was surprised to be diagnosed with this issue when she was so active and fit.

What blocked her from healing was the idea that there is a particular set of exercises that one does when diagnosed with pelvic floor dysfunction.

But this is wrong.

There is no universal set of exercises to heal pelvic floor dysfunction.

In fact, there is no “universal set of exercises” for any injury: your back pain, your hip tightness, your shoulder tension.

You don’t need to follow the fitness rules. What you need is an individualized approach based on the specific movement patterns that led to your pain or injury.

In Marcia’s case, I did a Body Map Session to discover what was leading to her prolapse.

The assessment revealed that she had tons of constriction in her ribcage that was contributing to her pelvic organ prolapse.

When our ribs are “locked down” or don’t move much, we end up with extra pressure in our abdominal cavity. That pressure leads to pelvic floor dysfunction.

She needed to dig deeper into the movement that she did about 22,000 times every day: breathing.

I created an individualized plan for Marcia to address her ribcage constriction and the associated movement patterns that led to her prolapse.

Her results were amazing.

In addition to feeling less “heaviness” in her pelvic floor, she noticed a marked improvement in all of her movement.

Marcia told me how much this work had impacted her life. Not only did our work together improve her pelvic floor health, there were other side effects. She received diagnostic results that her bone density had improved! She also noticed an improvement in her singing due to the breathwork.

She came to work on pelvic floor function and ended up with seemingly random additional benefits that improved her whole life.

She feels better, learned to listen to her body, and now feels empowered and energized to get back to giving to her community. Her goals were to get back out there helping people and return to the activities that she loved… and she did!

Movement patterns are difficult to identify in yourself if you don’t know what to look for.

I love working with people to identify movement patterns that contribute to their pain or injury. It’s amazing to watch people develop awareness and then begin to do what’s needed to bring balance and stability to their bodies.

Are you interested in building balance and stability so that you can overcome your pelvic floor injury or back pain? Comment below or DM me and we can set up a time to chat.

10/10/2024

For years, I had back pain. It was awful, debilitating sciatica that impacted every aspect of my life.

I knew that I wanted to heal, but I had no idea why I was in so much pain.

I hadn’t gotten in a car accident or fell down or even sneezed myself into a back spasm. I had just been living my regular life and all of a sudden I was hurt!

It was mystifying! How can you be fine one day and the next day be flat on your back not able to move?

After years of working hard to heal, I discovered that I had a particular way of engaging the muscles in my core that was putting tons of pressure on my low back. In addition to that, my pelvis liked to “live” in a position where it tilted forward, creating an arch in my low back all day as I walked around.

If I had known that I had these movement patterns sooner, I would have been able to retrain myself to hold my body in a different way.

But I didn’t have the AWARENESS that these were my movement patterns. I was going about my life, walking around with an arched back and doing (lots of) crunches in a way that hurt my back, and I had NO IDEA!

If you want to heal your body, or feel stronger and more fluid in your movements you have to develop awareness of your habitual movement patterns.

Without an awareness of how we move, and how those movements might be contributing to your pain, you are not going to make much progress toward getting out of pain and living fully into your vitality.

With awareness you start to see how your movement patterns contribute to your pain and injury.

Once you have awareness you can start doing the movements that bring you into balance so that you can build strength and mobility.

Addressing habitual movement patterns is a core concept in the work I do helping women increase their strength, mobility, and balance as they age.

It’s also key in healing from injuries to your core and pelvic floor.

You can feel aligned, free and functional once you address your habitual movement patterns!

Are you aware of your movement patterns? If so, comment and let me know! I love hearing people’s stories about developing body awareness!

09/09/2024

FREE WORKSHOP!

How to embrace the reality of your aging body, FEEL STRONG and get back to the activities that you love!

Friday September 20 9:30-11am in Oak Park

Register here: www.darcyadams.com/workshop

I love working with women with core and pelvic floor injury and dysfunction. This can show up as:
Low back pain
Hip Pain
Sciatica
Pelvic Organ Prolapse
Diastasis Recti

Are you tired of feeling injured, broken and stuck? Get ready to feel free, strong and able to do the activities you love.

This workshop is for you if:
💪 You want to change the underlying issues causing your injuries.
💪 You don’t want to wait too long to get strong and then regret it.
💪 You're active, but really want to make sure you're doing things “correctly.”
💪 You did PT for your injury but never dealt with the overall loss of fitness and strength.
💪 You want to keep going as long as you can!
💪 When things happen in your life you want to be ready for them!

My current client, Kristine, had this to say after four weeks working with me:
"This work has already impacted my movement and my life. I was so tender and had all sorts of aches in my body and mind when I started. I was afraid of hurting myself again. Now I am feeling so free and confident!"

I would love to see you at the Free Workshop on Friday 9/20 at 9:30am!

Feel free to DM me with any questions or register at:

www.darcyadams.com/workshop

I hope to see you there. 💚

05/28/2024

My client, Janelle, (not her real name) had visited practitioners for years trying to address her hip and low back pain with no real end to the pain.

In fact, issues kept creeping up and getting added to her list of aches and pains. First it was a sore foot that never got better, then knee pain, and finally neck and shoulder issues.

She spent a couple years feeling broken, but got some glimmers of hope when she found a respectful chiropractor and a good massage therapist. She would feel relief for a few days after each visit, but the same issues kept returning.

She tried a group fitness class and loved the sense of community, but the exercises only seemed to make the aches and pains worse.

When I met her I related to her frustrations from my own healing journey. (I’ll share more about that another time.) Feeling stuck and in pain is not a fun place to be.

But Janelle had hope that her body could heal!

She started my Foundations program and within 4 weeks Janelle discovered a “magic” movement that I had assigned helped her relieve her hip pain tremendously.

She told me that in all of her years visiting practitioners, no one had ever given her something that actually helped her find relief. It felt like a miracle!

And then she had a flare-up of her low back pain.

She was really disappointed, but had been expecting it because I warned her that it could happen.

Our healing journey is not a straight line.

You can feel like you are improving and then feel like you are going backwards and getting worse.

My one-on-one Foundations program addresses movement patterns. When you start “challenging” your engrained movement patterns and retraining your body, sometimes it can feel like things are getting worse and it can cause a lot of emotional turmoil.

Your body and brain need time to reorganize, integrate and create a new normal that is sustainable and long-lasting.

This is why my Foundations program is 16 weeks long. You will improve your strength, mobility and balance in four months.

I am here to reassure you that although this work is not a quick fix, the results do last. The benefits that you gain from disrupting long-held movement patterns are liberating AND sustainable.

05/09/2024

Lately a lot of my peers have been talking about their “aches and pains” more than they used to.

Many of them are really negative about getting older.

They say things like “I’ve heard it’s all downhill from here.”

“Is it too late? Can I get back my strength and mobility? Is it even possible to improve my balance?”

“I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to build muscle after a certain age.”

I hate these conversations.

It sucks that women in our society feel so undervalued and broken.
It sucks that the messages that we receive as we get older become increasingly negative.
It sucks that we view our aging bodies as a hindrance rather than a help.

I also love these conversations.

I get to tell them my own story of healing from a debilitating back injury.
I get to tell them the stories of the amazing badass women that I work with that build strength, mobility and balance and feel powerful in their bodies, their lives and the world.
I get to share with these women the proof that I have for how amazingly human bodies heal.

Every week I have at least one session with a client where we laugh with excitement and glee at the amazing progress that has happened in just ONE WEEK!

✨One client showed me how she totally “unlocked” the side-to-side movement in her hips (in one week).

✨ One client showed me how one of the movements I taught her is now her go-to move anytime she starts feeling like her back might flare up. Now she can manage her hip and low back pain in order to continue on the path of healing.

✨ One client had such an improvement in her foot pain and hip tightness that halfway through her program we completely shifted gears to start perfecting pushups!

These clients have all experienced first-hand gains in strength, mobility, and balance in their body - even “at their age”!

Healing is possible for you, in your body, every single day of your life.

Our bodies have helped us through a lot! They’ve adapted to stress, healed from injury, recovered from illnesses and difficult workouts and perhaps they have birthed a baby or four.

Our bodies ALWAYS WANT TO HELP US.

Our bodies ALWAYS WANT TO HEAL.

You CAN get back your strength and mobility. You CAN increase your balance as you age.

That’s what I’m here to help you do.

02/16/2024

FREE WORKSHOP
How to embrace the reality of your aging body, feel strong and get back to the activities you love!

March 1, 2024
9:30-11am
Intuit Dance Studio
237 Harrison Street
Oak Park, IL 60304
Register Here: www.darcyadams.com/workshop

This workshop is for you if...

💪 You don’t want to wait too long to get strong and then regret it.
💪 You really want to make sure you're doing things “correctly.”
💪 You want to keep going as long as you can!
💪 You did PT for your shoulder (or other) injury but never dealt with the overall loss of fitness and strength.

You CAN feel strong again so that you can pursue your passions!

I would love to see you March 1!

10/12/2023

I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy behind the scenes learning and building. But I'd love to connect with you!

I help women and men who are struggling in their physical recovery from core and pelvic floor injuries and dysfunction.

Do you recurring have low back pain?

Are you frustrated because you can't sneeze in peace without running to the bathroom? (My kids will tell you that my sneezes are far from peaceful, but now I can sneeze without peeing my pants!)

Do you have stuff you want to do in the world, but you feel stuck by your physical limitations?

I'd love to help you!

Let's schedule a FREE 15 minute phone consultation and I'll let you know if I think I can help!

CLICK HERE - https://DarcyAdams.as.me/

I can't wait to connect with you! 💚

(Gratuitous cute puppy photo for attention. 😍)

03/16/2023

Are you interested in recovering from past injuries, getting stronger and feeling powerful in your body and your life? If so, I'd love to chat with you. Schedule a free 15 minute phone call with me to see if I can help! Send me an email at me@darcyadams.com.

(Fancy scheduling software coming soon!)

04/13/2022

Hope changes things.

When I hurt my back in 2015 I couldn't lean forward to bathe my little kids. I couldn't shave my legs or tie my shoes. Walking up stairs hurt. Everything hurt.

When I explored different options for care I heard a lot of different things, but most of it was super disheartening. One PT told me that I could heal but it would take two years. I was SO discouraged that it would take so long, but he was the first person who told me there was a chance at recovery.

It was a glimmer of hope.

And hope has to be the first step! Once we find hope, truly believe that there is a CHANCE at change, we are on a new path.

From that day to this I have seen lots of practitioners, tried lots of things and moved in lots of ways, and the thing that kept me going was hope. Hope in the power of the human body to heal if given the opportunity.

I had intended to write about strength and mobility, but this is what poured out of me. Want to read some thoughts on Strength and Mobility? Sign up for my weekly newsletter at darcyadams.com (link in bio).

Want to chat more about what might be possible for you? DM me or comment below.

AND...

Zoom Classes start next week! 🥳

Mondays 11:45-12:30 CDT
45 minutes of strength & mobility with pops of low impact cardio.
Sign up at darcyadams.com (link in bio)