Cherisse Moe

For­mer na­tion­al vol­ley­ball cap­tain Ryan Stew­art is en­cour­ag­ing fel­low ath­letes to think about life be­yond the fi­nal whis­tle from an ear­ly stage. Hav­ing worn the cap­tain’s arm­band from 2015 to 2022, Ryan speaks from ex­pe­ri­ence. An in­jury dur­ing the 2018 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games in Colom­bia side­lined him for five months. He suf­fered from plan­tar fasci­itis, a de­bil­i­tat­ing foot con­di­tion that af­fects rough­ly 10 per cent of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion and can be ca­reer-threat­en­ing for high-im­pact ath­letes. That ex­pe­ri­ence forced him to con­front the re­al­i­ties of the lim­it­ed spe­cialised care avail­able to sport­ing tal­ent at home.

Ryan, 35, opened Re­newed Hope Mas­sage Ther­a­py—now cel­e­brat­ing its sev­enth year—to help bridge that gap. He for­malised his tran­si­tion in­to the pro­fes­sion­al sphere by ob­tain­ing cer­tifi­cates in Ther­a­peu­tic Mas­sage and Ad­vanced Mas­sage Ther­a­py at The UWI Open Cam­pus. “As ath­letes we are al­ways train­ing hard, push­ing lim­its and hav­ing the right sup­port is cru­cial,” he shares with Guardian Me­dia in a re­cent in­ter­view. “That gave me the push to cre­ate a space fo­cus­ing on re­cov­ery and well­ness.” He cu­rates a range of treat­ments, in­clud­ing Swedish, aro­mather­a­py, deep tis­sue, cup­ping ther­a­py, and hot stone mas­sages. Each is de­signed to help clients re­cov­er, un­wind, and leave feel­ing re­ju­ve­nat­ed.

While the spa ini­tial­ly catered to the sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty and per­son­al re­fer­rals, its rep­u­ta­tion quick­ly grew. To­day, Re­newed Hope Mas­sage Ther­a­py is a warm, invit­ing space, ser­vic­ing clients from teenagers to in­di­vid­u­als in their 80s. “Whether they’re run­ning 5Ks for ‘bread’ as peo­ple say, work­ing out in the gym, work­ing long of­fice hours or just run­ning er­rands...It’s all about help­ing folks feel their best, whether they’re ath­letes or not,” he ex­plains.

Build­ing a busi­ness from the ground up is no small feat. Ryan quick­ly re­alised that it de­mand­ed an en­tire­ly new skill set. A one-man op­er­a­tion, he wears every hat—from lead ther­a­pist and re­cep­tion­ist to ac­coun­tant and jan­i­tor. On any giv­en day, he man­ages the books, han­dles the laun­dry, fol­lows up on book­ings, and per­son­al­ly treats every client who walks through the door. “Some­times it feels like I’m spread­ing my­self too thin. But my biggest chal­lenge would def­i­nite­ly be the so­cial me­dia side of things. I can of­fi­cial­ly be hon­est with my­self and say it’s not for me. I’d stick to my strengths,” he says, laugh­ing.

De­spite his for­ay in­to en­tre­pre­neur­ship, Ryan has not ful­ly stepped away from the vol­ley­ball court. He con­tin­ues to sup­port the na­tion­al team, reg­u­lar­ly at­tend­ing prac­tice ses­sions to help train younger play­ers and en­sure they are pre­pared for the in­ten­si­ty of in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion. He al­so con­tin­ues to play lo­cal­ly in the Su­per League A Di­vi­sion with Club Chal­lengers, with their new sea­son kick­ing off this month.

His long-term goal is to ex­pand his Arou­ca-based busi­ness in­to a full-ser­vice well­ness ex­pe­ri­ence, in­clud­ing fa­cials, man­i­cures, saunas, and steam baths. For now, how­ev­er, the most re­ward­ing as­pect of the jour­ney re­mains the “lit­tle wins” he sees every day on his ta­ble. “Whether it’s help­ing some­one re­cov­er from a long-term in­jury or just get­ting them stress free, those things keep me go­ing. Know­ing that Re­newed Hope Mas­sage Ther­a­py is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s lives,” he shares, “that’s what makes all the hard work worth it.”

With de­ter­mi­na­tion, a pos­i­tive mind­set, and a gen­uine de­sire to make a dif­fer­ence, Ryan is putting in the tan­gi­ble work to be the change he wants to see.