After attending the Club Industry Show in Chicago last October, I came home pumped to add some new classes to Personal Fit Fitness’ offerings. The conference had given me just the confidence I needed to implement some ideas that had been swirling around in my head for just over a year. Prior, other than one-on-one personal training, I’d only taught group exercise for one summer; however, I had offered couples personal training for years and expanded to small groups of three to four people on occasion.

That single group exercise class evolved after a run in the spring of 2015 when my friends and I talked about how fun it would be to do a boot camp together. I decided that I was up for the challenge and organized a weekly boot camp for free for my fellow MRTT friends. With the help of Google and Pinterest, I designed my camps with runners in mind. Once summer ended and it was too dark to workout on the track and infield at 6 AM, our boot camp ended and I didn’t start it back up the following spring.

In addition to training clients at my gym, I train a few clients at a nearby 55+ community. One day while chatting with the activities director about presenting my Staying Fit Through The Ages class, she asked if I’d be interested in offering a beginner’s boot camp. We were both so motivated by the idea that we planned out the logistics, set up the first six-week session dates, and wrote up the description for their email blast in that very meeting.

During one of those early boot camps, the activity director said that she thought a yoga style boot camp would be fun and widely received by the residents. From that idea, my Balance and Stretching Class was born. After warmups, we spend half of the class working on balance with circuits and games, and the second half of the class stretching using both traditional static stretches and yoga poses. The class is a big hit and it has been rewarding watching my students’ balance, flexibility, and confidence improve. 

 

It’s been fun expanding beyond personal training and coaching this past spring and summer, and I’d love to add more classes this fall after everyone is back from their vacations!

 

  • Questions:
  • Do you take or teach group exercise classes? If so, which ones?
  • How flexible are you? ~ Even after 18 months of consistent yoga, I can still barely touch my toes – on a good day.
  • Did you like PE when you were in school?