Ray Portelli

I started work when I was 16 – an apprenticeship as a Boilermaker. Back then, you really got into it with bending your back and all that type of stuff.

I’m 57 now, so I’ve noticed that my lower back plays up a fair bit if I don’t pay attention to it.

The more your back’s sore, the less you tend to move, so it just gets worse. You can’t bend over. You can’t pick your kids up, you can’t play with them – it affects everything that you do.

It was getting worse – when we did MOVE Training I think I gave it a pain-level score of 7 to 8.

At the moment, the severity level of my aches and pains is really low. I’d say it’s down to about 1 or 2. It’s pretty good.

I’ve started to do what I’ve learned in Move 4 Life. At first I was skeptical of going into another training course on how to move. Then, when we started doing the moves, I was actually surprised at how good it felt. I walked out of that training session thinking, “I think that was really good.” It just felt right. It just felt right.

Because of the difference it feels in my body, I apply all the moves that I’ve learned.

I’m building a garden shed at home and I needed a slab for it. I bought these concrete slabs. They’re 500 x 500, 50mm thick and I knew they were going to be heavy.

I also had to buy 26 bags of sand and cement. I remember thinking to myself, “I wonder how I’m going to be in the morning.” And then, when I woke up in the morning, I noticed that my thighs were feeling what I did but my back was fine, and I sure got excited about that. Normally I would get a sore back and so that just felt terrific to me. The job came out terrific and I actually felt good after it.

To be able to just work and not have lower back pain, you’re happy, you’re just a better person all around.