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Tom Longo is the most experienced Resistance Flexibility trainer in the San Francisco Bay Area. A certified Resistance Stretching Instructor for over 25 years, he is founder of StretchWorks, where he offers individual private sessions and classes. Since 1992 Tom trained and taught with Bob Cooley, the creator of and genius behind Resistance Flexibility. In 2000 Tom was private flexibility trainer to Dara Torres for the Sydney Olympic Games, where Dara won two Gold and three Bronze medals in swimming. At present Tom works with individual private clients, creating custom Resistance Flexibility programs for them while providing advice on diet, physical and mental fitness, and cross-training. His clientele cover a broad spectrum of age and physical ability, coming to him for help with a wide variety of problems and goals.

I work with all sorts of people on all kinds of issues. My clients have ranged from ten years of age to over eighty, and they vary just as widely in their levels of fitness. I help them become pain-free, more agile and strong, and better able to perform in any physical activity or sport. Some are recovering from hip and knee replacement surgery, and I help them first to regain stability and strength in critical tasks like climbing stairs, then soon get them back to hiking and other more serious physical activities. Busy professionals come to relieve the physical and mental stresses from long hours of sitting and frequent travel, which often creates lower back, neck and shoulder pain. Others come wanting to feel younger and more limber, or to be more physically active without pain and injury, and we typically focus on flexibility, alignment, balance and even diet. I help athletes of all ages and levels find relief from chronic pain, increase performance and stamina, and ultimately to be pain and injury free. This includes competitive swimmers, surfers, baseball players, soccer players, older golfers looking to improve their game and reduce back pain, skiers looking for a better edge, or ardent marathon runners and Ironman triathletes. Professional ballroom and ballet dancers come also to improve their form and control.

I view the human body as a magnificent living machine, able to heal from injury, achieve more stable balance and alignment, and perform at increasing levels of complexity, strength and stamina. My love of physics and a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT live on in my current passion for the human body, where I now study structural kinesiology, anatomy, physiology and nutrition. I’ve spent hundreds of hours exploring the complex interaction between muscles, bones and joints, and analyzing how this brilliant machine can orchestrate these into intricate movements and feats of athletic prowess. And usually the body must perform these feats under less than optimal conditions, compensating for overly tight muscles, stiff joints, old injuries, and chronic pain.

Pain in your muscles and joints is an extreme manifestation of musculoskeletal imbalances that are robbing you of your true potential for peak physical performance and agility. And so, simply stated, I work with clients to release any overly tight areas in the body and strengthen overly weak areas, which then allows the body to do what it does naturally: move towards balance and alignment, heal from injury, maintain well being, and adapt to physical training demands by becoming stronger and more able to accomplish complex, strenuous tasks. I initially help clients to reduce and eliminate pain and discomfort, but only as the first step on a path to aligning their bodies, improving joint and muscle function, and helping them become more powerful and successful in their favorite physical activities. For some people being pain free is the most important goal, while for others it's merely the starting point on the road to fine tuning and super charging their bodies. And so my work with each client is unique, sometimes soothing and healing their body from trauma, continually bringing them into a more upright, balanced posture, repeatedly helping them to recapture the flexibility and strength that is innate to their body, and always seeking both physical and emotional excellence on the path to a better life experience.

we are the San Francisco Bay center for Resistance Flexibility and Bob Cooley's RFST