Athletes visit Wharton house to keep healthy at Trials
By Christopher Hunt
EUGENE, Ore. – Jim Wharton spoke just above a whisper. He has a deep voice, which is only thing that made his voice audible in a dimly lit living room.
“I don’t even want you to think about the other runners,” he told Miki Barber, laying on a stretching table while he guided her through a flexibility routine. “They are just masses of flesh next you.”
Wharton, a therapist, talked to her about eating healthy, about visualization, about why each individual stretch was important and where she should feel pressure and why.
“Every joint, every muscle is a part of an instrument,” he said. “The instrument is your body.”
This was anything but a therapist’s office. There was a stretching table in the living room, and across in a study and even one in the backyard, where Miki’s twin sister Lisa Barber went through a similar routine with therapist Jimmy Lynch. The house and the hushed tones offered tranquility, a Zen-like quality. Like there should have be candles surrounding the table and Sade playing softly in the rear.
But that the scene at a house about a mile from Hayward Field yesterday, while the Wharton Performance banner hung above the front door outside of a house rented from some college professors. “The Team Behind Your Dreams,” it said.
Jim and his son Phil Wharton (pictured above with Lisa Barber) founded Wharton Performance for muscle strengthening and flexibility in 1989. Jim runs a practice on 81 street and Columbus Circle in New York while Phil runs a newly opened clinic in Flagstaff, Ariz. The Wharton’s took their teams from New York and Arizona rented a home from some college professors and opened shop in Eugene, Ore. to service a stream of elite athletes competing in the Olympics Trials this week. It's like a one-stop auto body shop for athletes.
Meb Keflezgighi, Jon Rankin, Lopez Lomong and Lauren Fleshman have all visited the house. The Wharton’s have worked with all types of elite athletes. Jim showed pictures of a session with the Charottle Bobcats’ Emeka Okafor. Yesterday though, the house included the Barber twins, who will both run the 200 semifinals today and Lisa Barber went through an electro-therapy later on her hamstring with sports therapist Don Duran. Renee Metivier Baille, who will run in the 5,000 final tonight, had her sore Achilles worked on in the tiny study with books packed to the ceiling next to the dining room.
Just like the Barber twins walked to the Wharton’s house from the track, athletes have been coming in since last Wednesday when it was just Phil Wharton alone.
“I was swamped,”’ he said.
And after a day’s competition, ending after 9 p.m., the Wharton’s team has been up until around 1 a.m. working with athletes just looking for body maintenance. This is the Wharton’s fifth Olympic period. They work with athletes on muscle imbalances, injury prevention and structural imbalances. Jim and Phil Wharton have authored four books on their practices.
They started when Phil was in college. A competitive runner in high school in Florida, Phil earned a scholarship to the University of Florida. But a dramatic increase in his training mileage started causing injury after injury and serve back pain. Phil said doctors discovered a 33-degree curvature in his back, which require surgery. The procedure would have place two medal rods in his back to straighten his spine and effectively end his running career. Phil and his father, who was an architect and a coach at the time, traveled to Sarasota from Gainsville to meet with Aaron Mattes, who evaluated Wharton and worked with him on active isolated-stretching and muscle strengthening.
The Whartons became to study under Mattes and share their knowledge with other athletes. Soon, as their popularity grew, they wanted to expand and moved to New York to open a clinic in 1989. Now Phil is in Flagstaff, Ariz., running his clinic partnered with Northern Arizona University, preparing athletes for the Beijing Olympics. Both are still avid runners, Phil Wharton has reached elite status as a marathoner.
Wharton Performance, Phil says, has mostly spread through recommendations and word of mouth. Lisa Barber met Jimmy Lynch in New York before the Reebok Grand Prix in 2005 and once she heard he was in Eugene wanted to work with him again. She brought Miki, who met the Whartons for the first time.
“I like it a lot,” she said. “It’s a very wholistic approach. They try to work on you with everything.”
Lisa echoed the sentiment. “I didn’t know about this house,” she said. “It’s just a real tranquil environment. They tell you exactly what they are doing and why. I don’t always understand what they are saying but I like someone that knows what they’re doing.”
It’s not that the Whartons are producing miracles. They are just being attentive. Phil said that their love for running has helped understand runners both mentally and physically as they’ve approached therapy from both angles.
“It’s simple solutions to difficult problems,” he said.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.
