December Newsletter
Stoic Bodywork News Letter - December 2025:
Dear Honorable Patron, or Health & Wellness Enthusiast,
We’re closing out the year with a clear goal: to fully legitimize what we do here at Stoic. That means updating our pricing, refining our offerings, and starting the search for a larger facility so we can better serve you. The health & wellness industry is changing fast, and the broader health care system is shifting right along with it. Even though we’re not classified as medical professionals (we’re okay with that), we know we’re an important part of your health. Your trust in us is what guides every decision we make moving forward, and we’re immensely grateful for it.
As the larger health care market marches toward increased privatization, the health & wellness world is drifting toward commoditization. Stoic has to navigate both realities at the same time. The good news is that individuals acting morally and ethically can help shape how this all plays out. Privatization can sound dystopian, but done correctly, it can take pressure off an already-strained health care system. That change happens at the practitioner level—at the level of people who actually care about their communities. Just ask Phil about his time training with Dr. Foong in Chinatown years ago: an entire informal network quietly providing traditional medicine and care to the people who needed it.
In the health & wellness space, the “commodity” has always technically been the trainer—the market is only now catching up to that reality. With home equipment, online coaching, and AI-generated workouts becoming standard, the barrier to entry is no longer a gym membership or access to fancy equipment. Group fitness—something we’ll get into later in this letter—is now just one small component in a much larger equation. When you solve that equation honestly, one key variable rises to the top: the need for good trainers. Trainers who motivate, support, correct form, customize and modify, stay up to date on actual information, and most importantly, focus on you and your goals.
The Stoic Bodywork Methods were built around three things: the Individual, the Trainer, and the best evidence-based methods for both to succeed.
To keep pace with industry changes and to support our long-term plans, we’ll be updating our pricing, packages, and service structure.
Over the last year, we tracked the average gratuity per session and have now rolled that amount into our base service rates. This brings us in line with other therapeutic avenues such as DPTs, chiropractors, and sports medicine practitioners. We started this shift last year by discontinuing gift cards (which are technically a HIPAA gray zone anyway). Our aim is simple: Therapeutic Bodywork and Functional Training should be seen as legitimate health & wellness care, not luxury add-ons.
We also feel tipping culture has gotten out of hand. In many corporate spa environments, tips are used to justify paying workers less with the excuse that “they make it up in gratuities.” That’s essentially crowdfunding payroll—not fair compensation. In our world, this is clear enough that many FSAs and HSAs will deny reimbursement if a service was tipped.
You can still tip if you truly want to (for now), but we want to be very clear: tipping is ABSOLUTELY OPTIONAL at Stoic. Starting January 1st, we will charge fair, transparent fees for what we do, and a tip is never expected. (Per several client requests, we’ll leave the tip option on the card reader for now—but if you feel compelled, we recommend cash tips going forward.)
Services & Pricing Update
The following changes begin January 1st, 2026 for our currently offered services:
Therapeutic Bodywork Appointments
30 mins – $60
60 mins – $115
90 mins – $170
Physical Training Sessions
60 mins – $85
With these changes, we’re also excited to roll out several new services and package options. You’ll see more details on these soon, but here’s a quick preview:
Therapeutic Bodywork Apprentice Sessions with Morgan & Phil
Physical Training Packages, including small-group options
Fascial Reprogramming Sessions (the evolution of our postural assessments)
Always remember our ad nauseum disclaimer: We are not doctors, medical, legal or financial professionals, and none of this is medical, financial, legal or professional advice of any kind. Also, any affiliate links below will be noted with an asterisk ‘*’. Enjoy.
Deep Dive: Group Training, Cardio, and Why Your Lift Days Need Protection
At Stoic Bodywork, we build training and recovery around a simple rule:
Your body adapts best when it gets one clear message at a time.
Our in-house Stoic Methods are designed to keep that message clear—especially when it comes to strength training, group classes, and cardio.
That’s where the tension shows up:
You want to get stronger, move better, and feel better
You also love your group classes and don’t want to give them up
The goal isn’t to pick one or the other. It’s to organize them so they’re working together instead of stepping on each other.
Group Training Isn’t Bad. Random Stress Is.
Group training can be great for:
Accountability (you actually show up)
Community and fun
A consistent dose of conditioning
The catch is simple: group classes are built for everyone in the room at once, not for your specific goals, injuries, or recovery capacity.
From the Stoic Methods perspective, that means:
Group classes = broad, general stress
Your strength work = targeted, specific stress
Both are useful. But when general stress keeps colliding with your targeted strength work, your progress and your joints tend to pay the price.
Why We Don’t Put Cardio on Lift Days
Inside Stoic Bodywork, our default rule is:
No hard cardio on your heavy lift days.
Here’s why.
Strength sessions are when we’re asking your body to:
Recruit muscle efficiently
Load joints and connective tissue in a controlled way
Trigger the internal processes that support muscle repair and growth
Hard cardio or high-intensity conditioning sends a different signal:
“We’re going long, we’re going hard, and we’re prioritizing endurance.”
When you stack those two signals in the same day—especially in the same session—you dilute both. The result we see over and over again:
Slower strength gains
Persistent soreness and fatigue
Joints that feel “beat up” instead of supported
Light movement is a different story. On lift days, we like:
Easy walking
Gentle cycling
Mobility work
Think of it as circulation and prep, not a workout you need to “survive.”
How to Use Group Classes Without Sabotaging Your Goals
You don’t have to quit the classes you enjoy. You just need a better placement strategy.
1. Let your primary goal lead.
If your main focus right now is:
Strength / muscle / long-term joint health
Your lifting days are “protected days.”
Group classes and hard cardio move to non-lifting days.
If your focus is more:
General health, energy, and stress relief
You have more flexibility, but we still avoid stacking “max effort” on top of “max effort.”
2. Put classes on their own days when possible.
Example for a strength-focused phase:
Mon – Lift (protected)
Tue – Group class or conditioning
Thu – Lift (protected)
Sat – Optional class or conditioning
If your schedule is busier, we can still work with it—but the principle stays the same: protect your lift days.
3. Watch how you feel 24–72 hours later.
This is one of the key Stoic Methods checkpoints:
If a class leaves you so wrecked that your next lift feels terrible, that class is:
Too frequent,
Too intense,
Or in the wrong place in your week.
That’s your body giving clear feedback about how the stress is organized.
A Quick Note for Women
For women—especially in perimenopause and beyond—timing, temperature, and recovery matter even more.
Coaches like Dr. Stacey Sims often summarize it as: “Women are not small men.” Your hormones, thermoregulation, and recovery patterns are different, and your training should respect that.
In practice, that means we’ll pay closer attention to:
Where in your cycle (if applicable) we place your heaviest work
How much high-intensity conditioning you’re stacking with strength
How your sleep, mood, and joint comfort respond week to week
The same rule still applies: your lift days need space to do their job.
(A note for the girls: We specialize in working with women, so the Stoic Methods are built with women’s bodies and real lives in mind. Stacey is our lead trainer, and between her experience and Phil’s background in female health, we’ve spent years testing what actually works for women in different seasons of life, from heavy training blocks to perimenopause and beyond.)
How We’ll Help You Put This Together
When you work with us, we’re not just assigning random workouts. We’ll:
Ask what classes you’re currently doing and how often
Map your week on paper: lifts, classes, cardio, work, life stress
Restructure things so your strength work, recovery, and group training actually support each other
You bring the schedule and preferences.
We bring the Stoic Methods and the organization.
(A note for the guys: Relax—we didn’t forget about you. Phil is 280 lbs of “practice what you preach,” and Stacey will probably give you a run for your money on picking things up and putting them down.)
The Bottom Line
Group fitness is a tool.
Cardio is a tool.
Strength training is a tool.
They all work better when they’re not fighting for the same space.
Protect your lift days.
Use your classes and cardio on the days that can handle more general stress.
If you’re not sure how to line it all up, no worries, we’ve got you covered. One-on-One training is an important step in a proper fitness plan, and we have one of the most advanced and well researched methods out there. Not to mention one of the best trainers you can find. Let us know if you’d like some help.
Product recommendations:
Grab some merch on our online store!
Use code HOLIDAYS25 to get 10% OFF ANY ORDER from now till the end of the year.
Purebulk.com* is always our go to for supplements. As we are part of their practitioner program we are able to offer two different discount codes:
stoicbodywork15 - Get 15% off your first order.
STOICBODYWORK - Get 10% off any order (reusable)
You can read previous letters here
Thanks for reading. We look forward to seeing you at your next appointment.
