Molly Dulac is thirteen, a twin, and — in her own words — really strong. For the past seven months, she's worked one-on-one with Coach Jon Collette in forty-five-minute sessions built just for her, and she shows up wanting to be there.
Molly has hypotonia, or low muscle tone, and it's shaped a lot of her physical world. For her mom, Meghan, just walking through Prototype's doors was a leap. "It was a big step for us to even come in here and to say she can do this, she will do this," Meghan says.
"We were really starting off with very little exercise experience. I really wanted to kind of give her more confidence in physical activity and work on developing some strength."
— Meghan, Molly's momMolly had a track record of working well with other people and other therapists, so Meghan wondered if a coach of her own could help. She wasn't sure how it would go. "I was just thrilled that immediately she loved working with Jon, and she talks about him all the time and can't wait to see him," Meghan says. Molly puts it more simply: "He's helping me. He's teaching me a lot and new stuff." Asked if she feels comfortable in the gym, and if the people around her are kind, her answer both times is the same: "Yeah."
Building Real Strength, Session by Session
The training itself tells the story. Molly's squat work has progressed from a bench with light dumbbells up to a 16-inch box holding 25 pounds. Her farmer carries are up to 18 pounds in each hand for 100 feet at a time. On the lat pulldown she's climbed from 15 pounds of resistance to 21. She's pressing a barbell overhead for sets at 20 pounds, benching 20 pounds for sets of five, and pressing plates up to 25 pounds.
Some of it doesn't look like traditional strength work at all. She's run a 400 meters in 3:45. She's holding a front plank for 45 seconds, up from 20 when she started. She's hanging from the bar for 18 seconds, up from 4. And some of it is built to sneak in focus and memory work disguised as a game — Simon Says color sequences she's pushed up to seven in a row. None of it looks like a typical workout. It looks like Molly, building one piece at a time.
"I'm really strong."
— MollyThat strength has already carried her outside the gym. In June, Molly competed in the Special Olympics swim meet at Harvard.
Meghan sees the results outside the gym, too. "Since coming here, I, of course, see the gains and hear about the gains that she makes with each session. But what she takes out of it, I think, is more confidence in her day-to-day life — even having the ability to do more physically throughout her day or with her friends. I think just the physical strength that she's developed, along with that confidence, has just been such a great addition to her life and our life." Molly's noticed a difference too — she says she sleeps better on the days she trains.
Meghan and her family have lived in Westborough for more than ten years, and she'd always heard good things about Prototype around town. What she found once Molly started training was more than she expected: a coach Molly talks about all week, a gym where she says everyone is kind, and a place she says, plainly, that she likes coming to. Molly didn't come to Prototype to become an athlete. She came to get stronger — and found a place where she already belongs.
