To say I was anti-exercise as a kiddo would be an understatement. I absolutely loved to dance, but if you asked me to run, lift a weight or even do a push-up? It would be a no from me, dawg. As I got to high school and then college, I felt like dancing was enough exercise and that was all I had to do to stay healthy and strong. But then, on my 19th birthday, I was teaching dance at a summer camp at the time, and I felt a horrible pain in my lower right abdomen. Long story short, I had appendicitis and was out of commission for the rest of the summer. After recovery, I started back up at college in the fall. Dancing and moving my body in such a way felt a lot more difficult than I had remembered. I started to put on weight that I was not used to. My body, though recovered from the surgery, was still healing. I began to get depressed as I couldn't move my body that way I once could with such ease. Along with this new body realization, I started to realize I needed something else. I needed some funds. And so, my mom suggested I get my Barre certification and start teaching at the campus recreation center. I had a ton of dance experience at this point, both taking classes and teaching at the camp, so it seemed easy enough. I got my Barre cert, auditioned for the group fitness instructor position at the recreation center, and soon enough, I was teaching classes daily. 

It was so. much. fun.

It felt awesome to be up in the front of the studio, working up a sweat with the class. I loved putting my own playlists together, coming up with my own fitness routines to songs and even created my own Facebook Page titled, Group Fitness with Colleen. At that point, I had begun to branch out and teach other types of classes besides barre. I started teaching TRX bootcamp classes after I had taken so many and became inspired. If you're not sure what TRX is, it's a suspension trainer with two straps that are connected to an anchor point on the wall and it is a great way to do body weight exercises with easy ways to progress. Bootcamp classes were fun to teach because that was where we got to use other equipment such as dumbbells, kettlebells, bands and bosu balls. Being around the gym and the other instructors got me excited about exercise. The director of group fitness at the gym, Jill, would organize fun exercise challenges and olympic-like games for the instructors to get together and compete in teams. Being a part of such an electric and motivating community got me excited about exercise. Seeing other people get stronger and getting stronger myself got me excited about exercise. So excited, I decided to ask Jill to be my personal trainer and we started training together. This wasn't the first time I had hired a personal trainer for myself. The first time didn't quite feel like my choice and I also wasn't motivated in the slightest. After I was cleared from my doctor to exercise after my appendectomy, my mom hired this personal trainer to help me get back in shape. That language and the fact that it wasn't my idea made it hard for me to connect to the "why" that everyone is always talking about. But training with Jill was different. She always made the workouts fun. The goal was always to get stronger, not smaller. Though I would be lying if I said losing weight was never one of my goals. But the beauty of goals, I've realized, is that they constantly change. I am so grateful for Jill's guidance during my time as a campus recreation employee and being her client made me, excited about exercise!

I was in a good groove of it all. I was taking my dance classes weekly, consisting of ballet, jazz, modern and improvisation and I was teaching my classes. I started to see some morning regulars and it felt as though I was cultivating a fun and welcoming community in my fitness classes. I was moving and grooving and feeling good in my body. But of course, sometimes with us movers, we can get overworked and tired. One morning, while I was demoing for my TRX Bootcamp class, I hurt my hip flexor on the suspension trainers. This one slip up is still affecting me to this day. I ended up going through some physical therapy for back issues and eventually ended up at the chiropractor. Of which I am so grateful for. Getting injured as a dancer can take its toll on you. Getting injured in general can take a toll on you. But going to the professionals helped me not only heal, but learn more about how I can help my body in the future. Do I still have back pain? Yes. Who doesn't? But I know what exercises and self-massage I can do to help ease it enough that I can go about the rest of my day. And that knowledge is what I absolutely love. 

Once graduated, I spent the summer teaching barre classes in Beacon Hill, Boston while simultaneously being a Boston movies and TV tour guide on the weekends. It was a fun summer! I got to meet so many people being a tour guide and I was able to see how group fitness worked in the real world! I would spend my Saturday mornings on a train to Boston to teach barre, then throw on my blue tour guide shirt and would head to our meeting point. That was a hot summer. I remember once at the pit stop on the tour, I caught a glimpse of my back in a mirror once I took my back pack off and it was a much darker blue. I even had backpack sweat marks. The hustle is real! After the two hour tour I would collect my tips in front of the Cheers bar and then head to a little Italian cafe and open up my NASM textbook to study. I was studying to get my personal training certification so that I could move to New York in the fall. The hardest thing for me on that exam were the under active muscles and the over active muscles in certain exercises. There was just SO much to memorize and I was better and remembering choreography than anatomical terms. I studied hard all summer and by October 2018, I was moving to Brooklyn to be a personal trainer at a gym I had never heard of before. Equinox. 

I obviously have heard of the Equinox gyms. Now. But honestly, I had no idea what I was about to walk into. I had never been a personal trainer before. I only ever coached groups of people. And I used music! I was excited though, and the personal training training program where they trained trainers how to train was tremendously helpful. I learned a lot at that job about personal training, yes, but also about people. One aspect of the education program was sales. Oh I hated sales. I just wanted to help clients! Not sell sessions! Depending on how many sessions we had scheduled, determined how many "floor shifts" we had. A floor shift was basically 4 hours of, the best way I can describe it is, observing the gym. I worked at Equinox from the fall of 2018 through the spring of 2020. During that time I was able to receive a great personal training education and I learned how to talk to people about exercise, goals and nutrition and why's. I was doing my best to train people and build a business for myself there, but it was challenging. I was just starting out. A baby trainer, and so I think that was why it was hard to maintain a client base. My life became all about fitness. Which was fitting because Equinox's whole slogan is "It's not fitness, it's life." But all I was really worried about was making rent. There would be days where I started my day at 6 am with a client and ended it at 11 pm closing the gym during a floor shift. It was all exercise all the time. And I got pretty strong during that time. This was when I was really introduced to strength training, body building and hypertrophy in general. I figured out that the best way to spend my days were to train clients in the morning and workout for myself in the afternoon before 5 pm when clients would start up again and the gym would get so busy. I loved it. Working out at an Equinox gym in the mid afternoon? It was a dream. It was so empty, though a lot of the times other trainers would workout around this time and so my original one hour workout would turn into three hours because of chatting and trying new things with my coworkers. I am so grateful for my education that I received while working at Equinox. I am also so grateful for all the people that I met during my time there.

I ended up having to leave Equinox during March of 2020 when the pandemic hit. I moved back to Massachusetts for the time being and managed to virtually train some of my clients. This was when we were all first introduced to the idea of virtual training which is now like second nature to me. It's convenient for my clients, and myself, and it allows me to train people from anywhere in the world! At one point, I was training people in both California and Korea, all from my little Brooklyn apartment. Very cool. 

While I was in Massachusetts during this time, I also began teaching dance at my cousin's dance studio in Canton. I had one day a week where I would teach turns, jumps, leaps and technique to the dance company and it was so fun! It reminded me just how much I loved dance and loved creating. And these kids could DANCE. The studio had an excellent acrobatic training program and so anything I threw at them, they accepted with ease. I was able to express how much I missed New York through a dance routine and it was magic. 

As the world adapted and we pushed through the pandemic, I moved back to the city that I loved and began teaching group fitness again. First, at a rehabilitation center in Williamsburg, and now I work for what is easily my favorite fitness job I've had. I am a Senior Coach for F45 Training. With this amazing fitness community I have found the support I didn't know I needed. I've learned that community is so important to me in both fitness and dance. I believe I have now found a great balance of the two in my life and I love being able to share it all with my community. ​​