Twice a Week, from Home

Finding strength-- with our parents.

A Vivo class in action

I’m lucky. My mom lives just around the corner from me.

Hers is the house we walk to almost daily—the one with the best snacks, the most competitive board games, and the worst-behaved dog in the world. My daughters have grown up with Grandma close by. She’s always been there for them, just as she’s always been there for me: diapers, naps, stroller walks, school pickups and drop-offs. Even our dog, Ninja, pulls toward Bedah’s house every time we head out for a walk. It’s the place to be.

But over the past year, things have changed.

Mom’s been hit with a cascade of physical challenges: mysterious pain, stiffness, falls, surgeries. The doctors still don’t have clear answers. This month, she’s scheduled for a knee replacement. Every morning over coffee, we talk about what hurts, which movement feels hardest, how frustrating it is to feel her strength slipping.

For a woman who could change a tire, fix a toilet, and grow her own vegetables, this really sucks.

So this weekend, I reached out to my friend Eric Levitan. He knows this terrain well.

Eric is the founder of Vivo, a strength-training platform built specifically for older adults. The idea grew out of his experience caring for his own aging parents, during which one word kept surfacing: sarcopenia. Most people know it as progressive loss of muscle mass and strength with age; what’s less understood is how deeply it underpins many of the conditions we do talk about: diabetes, osteoporosis, loss of mobility.

“We don’t talk about the thing that leads to all those things,” Eric told me. “But we should. Because you can do something about it. You don’t have to be a passenger on the ride to frailty.”

That insight became the foundation for Vivo. The concept began as an in-person program in senior centers and retirement communities. Then the pandemic hit, and Eric pivoted. Vivo launched on Zoom in the spring of 2020. At first, it was introduced to just friends and family as an experiment. Eventually, the circle of participants spread wider until eventually the emails came flooding in: When can I join another class?

Today, Vivo runs more than 140 live classes a week. Thousands of older adults–typically in the 65 to 75 age range–have trained. Many were referred by their adult children, who often join in. That’s why there are also plenty of users in their 40s and 50s—because sometimes, what makes it all possible is doing it together.

Power duos: Eric Levitan and his father; Mara Shurgot and her mother

That’s how Mara Shurgot and her mother, Gail Shurgot, got started.

Mara, who lives in Calgary and works part-time in communications for Duke University, met Eric back in 2019, when he was mentoring Duke engineering students on entrepreneurship. One day, over lunch, he floated the notion of building a strength program with his parents in mind. “That’s such a good idea,” she told him. “My dad’s a regular at the YMCA, but my mom is really not a fan of the gym.”

By fall 2020, Mara’s parents—sheltering in place in Seattle—were heading into a long winter indoors. She was worried. What will this winter look like for them? So she reached out to her mom and said, “What if we just tried Vivo for three months? Twice a week. We’d see each other, stay active, get through the season.”

That short trial has turned into almost five years of shared workouts.

“Mom and I have ended up having a ball,” Mara said. “When you log on, everyone waves. The instructor dives in. We text after: ‘Those lunges were hard today!’ or ‘Off to get a protein shake!’ We talk about our days. The conversation continues. And the class prompts have sparked stories I never knew—like, that my mom played multiple instruments as a kid. Or that she and my dad traveled all over North America after getting married.”

Then there’s Tiffany Shubert, a physical therapist based in Durham, North Carolina. She first met Eric at a conference and was intrigued enough to take a few Vivo classes herself. “This is exactly how we should be exercising as we age,” she said.

Her mom, Brenda, who lives in California, wasn’t doing any strength training. She walked regularly, but didn’t have a program to stay strong. So Tiffany encouraged her to try it.

“I do a class with her once a week,” she said. “It’s not a visit. Not a holiday. Just a normal 30 minutes we spend in our own spaces, doing something good for our bodies.” Brenda, who had major back surgery more than a decade ago, feels confident because the instructors know how to modify everything. “There’s trust there,” Tiffany said. “And that makes a huge difference.”

Sometimes Tiffany’s teenage son pops into view during class, and her mom gets a quick hello from her grandson.

Vivo costs around $150 a month for two classes a week. Eventually, Levitan hopes that health plans will include Vivo subscriptions, making strength training more accessible as a workplace or health coverage benefit. To that end, its impact is being studied by researchers at Duke and Wake Forest. The program has also been backed by an NIH grant.

But for now, customers pay out of pocket, switch on their cameras, and show up. Twice a week.
From home.
With or without someone beside them.

For me, that someone might be my mom.

We just completed our first introductory session and assessment this weekend, and we plan to start classes for real this week. I’ll do some with her, some on my own. Some at her house, some at mine. Sometimes it’s nice to do something active with people you care about.

And now, that house around the corner—the one where we’ve always felt cared for and loved—might become something more.

Maybe it’s not just where we go to feel better.
Maybe now, it’s where we go to get stronger.

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