Personal Trainer & Mobility Specialist
In 2020, I severely sprained my ankle in rehearsal. During lockdown, while unable to receive in-person physical therapy, I was searching for resources and found a Youtube video with Dr. Andreo Spina explaining ankle mobility.
A rabbit hole of joint health and updated science presented itself to me and began to answer questions I always had as a professional dancer.
Functional Range Conditioning is Dr. Spina's system of mind-body enhancing practices that, instead of reinventing the wheel, explain the science that helps the wheel roll smoothly.
The information I began to learn from that point on hit different, and my approach to dealing with pain, immobility, and body conditioning dramatically changed.
Quickly I understood that I had never slowed my movement down enough to understand any healthy mechanics in my joints. There was never time. My job was to step to the beat and make the choreography happen, regardless of the pain.
I fell in love with slow movement while at Colorado College taking a class then called "Naked and Delicious," of course. Japanese performance artists Eiko and Koma Otake taught me "the art of hesitation" a glacially slow, mindful, way of moving.
By slowing things down, there is more time to process. After two certifications with Functional Range Conditioning (FRC and Kinstretch), I've never loved slow movement more. After time and consistency, I began to feel the physical benefits and I became my own poster child for joint rehabilitation and health.
Dance was initially a vocation to express my love for movement and prioritize my body, but it hurt me. So I shifted my passion to strengthening joints and muscles in order to help myself and others move pain-free.
The greatest education came from being injured as a dancer. Call me Humpty, but truly none of the kings horses or the kings men were able to put me back together again for good, I had to learn how to do it myself: the mechanism for healing was always within.
Adam Dickerson is a Colorado native and Colorado College alum (Art Studio, ‘13). After training under Patrizia Herminjard and Debbie Mercer at CC, Adam moved to NYC to perform with Graham 2, H.T. Chen & Dancer’s, Amy Marshall Dance Company, and Paul Taylor Dance Company. Adam founded Fooju Dance Collaborative in 2014 as an experimental performance art group that sought to subvert the expectations of classical dance by dancing anywhere but on stage. While performing and touring as a dancer, Adam turned to the world of group fitness for additional strength and conditioning training. In 2015 he began teaching at Physique 57 and in 2018 at Obé Fitness, which would lead to his certifications: Personal Trainer (NASM) and Mobility Specialist (FRC). Group fitness instruction opportunities led Adam to teach in boutique fitness studios in Manhattan, Brooklyn, LA, the Hamptons, and highlighting self-care and motivation techniques on ABC News. In 2024, Adam moved back to Colorado Springs to combine his passion for dance, music, and healthy movement with a mobility joint-training class called Up&Adam. In the Spring of 2025, Adam was a guest teacher at CC for the Body in Motion 8th Block, and he is thrilled to continue coaching dancers and pedestrians alike to learn how to move pain-free in their bodies by fortifying the mind.
