Exploring Life & Business with Alexis Morgan of Renu Wellness & Recovery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexis Morgan. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Renu Wellness and Recovery is co-owned by Zac Morgan, Alexis Morgan, and Logan Martin.

Dr. Zac Morgan is a physical therapist, board-certified Orthopedic Clinic Specialist, and a CrossFit-L2 trainer. In addition to seeing clients at and co-owning Onward Physical Therapy, Zac serves as faculty for the Institute of Clinical Excellence, where he travels the country teaching how to better manage neck and back pain. He’s on a constant pursuit of health & recovery, which is what led Zac to a deeper understanding of the benefits of hot and cold exposure and the desire to open up RENU.

Dr. Alexis Morgan is a women’s health physical therapist, who specialized in treating pregnant and postpartum athletes at Onward Physical Therapy. Additionally, Alexis teaches Clinical Management of the Fitness Athlete: Pregnancy & Postpartum with the Institute of Clinical Excellence. With her clientele of busy moms, Alexis has been on a mission to find ways to help new parents better recover from their workouts.

Logan Martin is a commercial insurance risk advisor and real estate investor. When he is not working, you can find him at CrossFit Hendersonville exercising. As a prior collegiate athlete, Logan understands and values the need for recovery from working out. A Nashville native, he believes in bringing the value of recovery to everyone at RENU Wellness & Recovery.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a business is never easy, and always requires struggle, almost as a rite of passage. During our planning phase, we dedicated many hours to organizing the space, establishing membership structures, and crafting a positive member experience.

In the execution phase, we faced the challenge of fitting two saunas and two cold plunge tubs into the designated area and worked closely with multiple electricians to ensure that all the equipment was functioning properly. Despite the difficulties we encountered, the outcome has been tremendously rewarding.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Renu Wellness & Recovery provides cold immersion and sauna services to Hendersonville, and we are the sole provider of these services in Sumner County.

Sauna is a small, heated room that is designed to make you sweat. Typically, it is heated to a temperature between 180-200˚F, with low humidity. Traditional sauna bathing has numerous benefits including:

1. Improved cardiovascular health (Significantly lower rates of stroke, heart attack, and hypertension are found in people who use a sauna regularly).

2. Improve recovery & HRV (Heart rate variability [HRV] is a measure of how well-recovered you are based on your nervous system response. Regular sauna bathing improves HRV, improving your ability to recover from the stresses of daily life & workouts.)

3. Antidepressant effects (One single sauna session has antidepressant effects lasting up to SIX WEEKS.)

4. Improved brain health (Regular sauna use has been shown to decrease the risk of dementia & Alzheimer’s by 60%! Sauna becomes even more important to use as we age.)

Cold plunge is a practice of immersing oneself in cold water, typically for a few minutes. The water temperature is usually between 45-58˚F. Cold plunging has numerous benefits for human health, including:

1. Improved muscle recovery: After high-intensity exercise, cold immersion helps with perceived muscle soreness & recovery by a decrease in creatine kinase — a marker for muscle damage.

2. Improved metabolism: Regular deliberate cold immersion converts your white fat cells to brown/beige fat cells, which raise metabolism and ‘burn’ up the white fat cells. Shivering is key.

3. Better mental resilience: Cold immersion is an opportunity to stress our body while learning how to respond to that stress with calm and clarity.

4. Decreased inflammation: Decreases in pro-inflammatory blood markers and increases in natural anti-inflammatory proteins are found in the blood immediately following cold exposure.

Although Renu Wellness & Recovery is located inside CrossFit Hendersonville, it’s not necessary to be a member of CrossFit Hendersonville to use our services.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the health benefits of cold immersion and saunas.

These practices have become more popular, particularly thanks to Andrew Huberman’s work on the Huberman Lab.

It’s likely that this trend will continue to expand over the next five years as people become more aware of the health benefits of these simple-to-use practices.

Pricing:

• 24hr pass for $20
• Monthly Membership $90
• Annual Membership $999
• There are no limits on how often you can use the sauna and cold plunge within your given membership.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.renuwellnessrecovery.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renu_hvl/
• Linkedin: How to cold plunge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtCzkVSX4vU
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMjH1kI3I17eaTZIRgQo_Hg
• Other: See the sauna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg_IWizVr9k 

Image Credits
Ben Miller, @millshop.studio