FlexABLE Owner Shares His Journey From Addiction to Entrepreneurship

Nate Lavallee, owner of FlexABLE (Courtesy photo)

After years of struggling with addiction, Nate Lavallee is now focused on not only his own health but the wellness of others as the owner of FlexABLE, a company that specializes in assisted stretching and mobility training to help people improve the quality of their lives.

His path to business ownership is intertwined with his sobriety journey. Lavallee says his teenage years involved a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, partying and struggling with what he refers to as the “dark stuff” that continued throughout his twenties. “This lifestyle brought me to some really dark places,” Lavalle, now 38, says. “Luckily I was able to find my way out of that.”

Lavalle, who attended Memorial High School in Manchester and graduated from Manchester Community College (MCC) where he studied health and wellness, continues to work on staying sober and improving himself. His road to recovery has been a mixture of trial and error, meditation and ultimately self-awareness.

“I was in a lot of pain and not really living life or accomplishing very much,” he says. “Once I hit 30, the recovery journey started, and one thing I did was to get into fitness. But first I needed to get my mind in shape because I knew if I was a complete mess, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the gym or eat healthy.”

After graduating from MCC and then working as a personal trainer, Lavallee decided to start FlexABLE, located on Mast Road in Manchester, in 2022. FlexABLE offers a form of assisted stretching called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation or “PNF.” PNF is a technique that relies on the body’s own reflexes to produce deeper stretches with its contract-relax method.

FlexABLE staff performing techniques on clients. (Courtesy photo)

“I knew that I wanted to tie in the physical aspect to stretching with the mental and the spiritual aspect because I struggled with all three,” he says, adding FlexABLE strives to provide people of all ages with customized training. FlexABLE’s clients range from people who work at desks to athletes, and many are referred by orthopedic doctors after completing physical therapy. Lavallee says the company is steadily growing.

Lavallee wanted his addiction story to be a part of the business because he believes it can help people understand the gravity of the crisis and that the road to recovery and well-being is possible. “The old me would be a little skeptical to talk about this because people stigmatize,” he says. “But it’s not like that so much these days. I think it’s important to get it out.” For more information, visit flexable.biz.