Conquering problems of today's athlete

Published in Gannett Westchester Newspapers

Dr. Richi Morris uses unique methods to improve performance
Athletes don't reach star status by wishing their way up the ladder. Proper training methods, diet, and psychology have as much to do with winning as natural talent.
That's where Dr. Richi Morris of Yonkers comes in. A hypno-analyst, nutritionist and athlete who worked with the U. S. Olympians in both the summer and winter games, Morris has established a medical center strictly for the athlete called Athlete's World Institute for Sports Performance Improvement.
The ominous-sounding organization has a benevolent purpose to help the athlete progress by conquering his mental and physical problems.
Morris started the center in September and enlisted colleagues - "athletes who just happen to be doctors," as he put it - to server on the staff. A pair of chiropractors, a dentist, a neurosurgeon, foot specialists and an internist work with him in the Central Avenue (Hartsdale) institute, dealing specifically with the mental and physical problems commonly encountered by top-performance players. Morris sees more than his share of drug abuse cases.
Every staffer is a serious competitor himself, Morris won his 14th powerlifting title Nov. 10, and broke his own 10-year-old bench-press record with a 440-pound lift in this spring's North American championships.  Dr. Sandy Rosner, the neurosurgeon is a marathon champion and a double-black belt in karate. The chiropractors, twin brothers name Gary and Joel Young, are involved in the martial arts.
That aspect sets this program apart from the others. The staff members truly understand the makeup of an athlete.
"The great part about this is that we can all empathize with the people we work with," said Morris. "We're all athletes ourselves so we know what it's like to sweat, toil, train hard and all that".
Because of that, the doctors can better relate to the athletes, many of whom are professionals who depend on their abilities to earn a living. A cocaine dependence, a torn up knee or a weakness in the jaw can all be treated in one building.
A dominant philosophy covers all this. Morris calls it resonance - the fine-tuning of the body though exercise, nutrition, and proper frame of mind. It's a conscious state where the physical and mental, the raw ability and instinct, fall in perfect line.
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Olympic gold-medal swimmer Rick Carey of Mount Kisco achieved that feeling after Morris worked with him.
"Carey felt like 'I am the water,'" said Morris "And in truth, it was an extension of his own mind. Or take a guy like Nelson Vails (silver medalist bicycling). Here's someone who has no training, grew up in Harlem and was a bicycle messenger boy, but he rides a bike faster than anyone around . Who taught him? Nobody. It's inbred. That's resonance."
Morris' own experiences reinforce his beliefs. Once a football star for Penn State, Morris went to Vietnam as a Green Beret and came back a paraplegic. Doctors said he'd never walk again.
Morris developed his own nutritional program, incorporating vitamins with amino acids and other natural substances, received psycho-analytical help from Drs. Helen and Jack Watkins and called back on his athletic background during a rehabilitation period. Today he not only walks, he wins powerlifting championships too.
Holistic healing - the body revitalizing itself without medicine- is part of it. Most of it though is textbook nutrition and telling the nervous system to regenerate." said Morris. "We already know nerves regenerate. It's a question of eating the right substances to help them develop."
Morris plans programs for his patients, each as different as the individual. Then he works in an individualized weight training program and hypno-analysis, which alters the athlete's ego-state, the inner dialogue which nurtures negative thoughts and doubts. Yes, he uses hypnotic suggestion where the patients are put into an Alpha state, the stage of consciousness most susceptible to suggestion. And yes, much of the medical community has yet to accept his type of psychology. No, he is not a nightclub act who makes patients quack like ducks.
"We're trying to get those guys out of the business," said Morris of the psychological hacks. "They're killing us. People go to those places and see someone get up there and lose control, and they laugh. But in the back of their mind they're saying 'Not me.' Then they're afraid to get that kind of help if they need it."
There is no hocus-pocus. And it's more than just positive thinking, mind of matter stuff.
"It's that and more", said Morris. "What the mind conceives and believes, the body achieves. That's where the nutrition comes in. First we tune the human instrument, and then hit it with the Alpha state.