The McCartyFit Team
The paths that led us here are very diverse, but we've come together for one goal.
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Stephanie Higgs
Personal Trainer
Mom. Spartan. Motivator. Driven. Empathetic.
Excels at endurance and triathlon races!
Mixing Boxing and HITT training to help others become stronger, feel happy, and gain confidence.
Background: NASM-Certified Personal Trainer and Rock Steady Boxing Certified
NASM AFAA Certified Group Fitness Instructor
Personal Quote: "No challenge, no change."
Personal Training Style: UPBEAT!!
Favorite Exercise: Boxing
Personal Interests: cycling, boxing, and running
Mom. Spartan. Motivator. Driven. Empathetic.
Excels at endurance and triathlon races!
Mixing Boxing and HITT training to help others become stronger, feel happy, and gain confidence.
Background: NASM-Certified Personal Trainer and Rock Steady Boxing Certified
NASM AFAA Certified Group Fitness Instructor
Personal Quote: "No challenge, no change."
Personal Training Style: UPBEAT!!
Favorite Exercise: Boxing
Personal Interests: cycling, boxing, and running
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MJ Saunders
Personal Trainer
Background: Certified Functional Strength Coach
Personal Interests: running, swimming, reading, and spending time with family.
Background: Certified Functional Strength Coach
Personal Interests: running, swimming, reading, and spending time with family.
"It is not about me: It’s about designing the best programs, then stepping aside and letting the client take the spotlight."
MJ brings a wealth of experience to McCarty Fit. She has worked with all types of clients, from the average adult looking for direction and encouragement on how to safely improve their fitness, to athletes wanting to make improvements in their sport.
MJ is a Certified Functional Strength Coach through MBSC. As a functional strength coach, her focus is on improving people’s movement quality to enhance their enjoyment of daily tasks and recreation, and to develop their strength and cardiovascular fitness.
MJ is relaxed, fun, yet focused when training her clients. In addition, she responds to her client’s needs and designs workouts that are suitable for each individual. MJ values the personal interactions you get when working with individuals, and views the relationships with her clients as part of the overall training experience.
MJ has experience working with athletes. As a former division I college runner and competitive marathon runner, MJ understands the importance of a solid strength program to reduce injury and to improve sport performance. She's coached movement skills for youth soccer players in small groups and individual players on developing their strength. In addition, MJ has been a running coach for middle school, high school, college and adult runners. Her coaching of runners has included strength programs specifically designed for runners.
MJ received her bachelor’s degree from East Tennessee State University where she was a division I track and cross country runner and earned a Master’s degree from James Madison University. She is currently an instructor in the department of Kinesiology at James Madison University where she teaches Lifetime Fitness and Wellness, and is a high school cross country coach.
MJ is a Certified Functional Strength Coach through MBSC. As a functional strength coach, her focus is on improving people’s movement quality to enhance their enjoyment of daily tasks and recreation, and to develop their strength and cardiovascular fitness.
MJ is relaxed, fun, yet focused when training her clients. In addition, she responds to her client’s needs and designs workouts that are suitable for each individual. MJ values the personal interactions you get when working with individuals, and views the relationships with her clients as part of the overall training experience.
MJ has experience working with athletes. As a former division I college runner and competitive marathon runner, MJ understands the importance of a solid strength program to reduce injury and to improve sport performance. She's coached movement skills for youth soccer players in small groups and individual players on developing their strength. In addition, MJ has been a running coach for middle school, high school, college and adult runners. Her coaching of runners has included strength programs specifically designed for runners.
MJ received her bachelor’s degree from East Tennessee State University where she was a division I track and cross country runner and earned a Master’s degree from James Madison University. She is currently an instructor in the department of Kinesiology at James Madison University where she teaches Lifetime Fitness and Wellness, and is a high school cross country coach.
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"I have been working out consistently with MaryJo (MJ) for seven plus years now. Having had numerous trainers before, I can wholeheartedly recommend MJ as a trainer to anyone looking to improve their level of fitness, whatever that may be- muscle strength, cardio improvement, mental well-being, weight-loss or functional movements we need to maintain a safe and healthy life. MJ is extremely well versed in all aspects of fitness. She is a master at personalizing training to meet your specific needs. She has changed my life with improvements in all the fitness categories mentioned above. I hope to continue to grow older gracefully with her by my side at least 1-2 days a week." --Marianne B. |
Team members you can trust, will enjoy working with, and that will help you get the health and fitness results you want.
Khashayar Dashtpour
Intern
Driven. Goes by Khash!
Strength. Power. Boxing. Driven.
Been where you are and worked hard towards his goals.
Driven. Goes by Khash!
Strength. Power. Boxing. Driven.
Been where you are and worked hard towards his goals.
Jesy Asistores
Intern
Strength. Hard Working. Creative.
Brings positive and supportive energy to any room! Boxing.
Strength. Hard Working. Creative.
Brings positive and supportive energy to any room! Boxing.
Raeann McCarty
Founder.
Coach. Trainer. Mentor.
#McCartyStrong
Founder.
Coach. Trainer. Mentor.
#McCartyStrong
Raeann McCarty BioEducation - B.S. Kinesiology with Exercise Science concentration, M.S. in progress
Background/Experience
Fitness Industry Certifications:
Personal Motivational Quote: You are not alone. Personal Interests: dogs, psychology, and documentaries Personal Training Style: high energy by-your-side personalized motivation. Personal Favorite Exercise: I enjoy teaching exercises that make people feel powerful and build their confidence! |
We help YOU build a more fit and healthy YOU!
From the beginning
An Interview with Raeann
Interviewer: We’re here with Raeann, getting to know how she came to be a personal trainer and boxing coach.
So it seems to me, people who might want to work with you—to train, to get in shape, to just feel better—they’re gonna want to know a little bit about you, because the qualifications don't mean anything to those who don’t know the business really. They want to know the person behind the fitness qualifications. So, tell us--how did you get into the fitness world to begin with? When did you start realizing that was something you wanted to do for others, and then, specifically, about some of the combative sports aspects of your journey. Ok, I’ll be quiet now.
RM: Well, it started all the way back in high school--actually, before high school. I've always been hyper-active and energetic. That’s one of the aspects of having ADHD (Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder) and learning to live with it and leverage it for success. From the time that I was learning how to crawl, I was a handful for my parents. Ha. One of my earliest memories is of my mom chasing me as I speed crawled away from her.
My parents put me in karate at age five and soccer at eight. At some point, my mom put me in girl scouts and it was a nightmare for me. Just not my cup of tea (It seems to be a great organization for others.).
Interviewer: So very, very short tenure as a Girl Scout.
RM: Haha, right. It lasted for about a year. I enjoyed the karate though. Looking back, it was probably a healthy outlet for me to release some energy.
By freshman year in high school, I discovered wrestling. Two of my closest friends in high school wanted to be managers for the wrestling team together. I thought that it would be a fun way for us to spend time together, but I was immediately interested in participating after watching the wrestlers practice. The intensity and quick pace was exciting and I loved the challenge of the sport.
My parents were less than thrilled about the idea. After a great deal of convincing, I was able to wrestle as a sophomore at age 15. Unfortunately, my season ended early due to breaking my clavicle during a practice. My parents no longer allowed me to participate after the incident so that was the end to my short wrestling career. Ha. I ended up participating in cross country and track for the remainder of high school though.
As I began college at James Madison University--Go, Dukes!—I discovered club wrestling at JMU with a friend. There were 20-30 members, and I was the only female.
Interviewer: What was that like?
RM: Ah, I felt pretty excluded. I could tell most of them didn't want anything to do with me, but I found a few people that welcomed me and I practiced with them. It was fun and exciting to rediscover combat sports. I participated in club wrestling for my freshman year and then discovered MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) as a junior.
Interviewer: Okay, so there was a little gap when you weren’t pursuing something athletic.
RM: No, let me backtrack. During my first semester of college, I followed the popular route in going to parties and eating all I could at the dining halls. After about three months of this lifestyle, I realized that I needed to make some adjustments in my lifestyle choices.
So, I am an all-or-nothing kind of person.. after my first semester of college, I made a big lifestyle change and adopted a clean style of eating and spending more time at the University gym.
I wasn’t familiar with any of the equipment in a gym, so I spent most of my time on cardio machines and doing some of the few exercises that I had seen other gym goers performing.
After a couple of months of following this routine, I came across a motivational CrossFit Video (fantastic marketing by the way.). It gave me the same feeling of watching wrestling for the first time. I contacted a friend that had some lifting experience and asked him to teach me some weightlifting basics, starting with a barbell deadlift and squat. And I was hooked. My new weightlifting obsession continued into my sophomore year.
Interviewer: Were you trying to do body building type of stuff or were you just getting stronger and fitter?
RM: Both, I think. I discovered that I'd like to compete in this somehow, and getting stronger was good for my self-esteem. A male friend of mine introduced me to lifting, but then a female friend of mine wanted to learn, so began sharing what I knew/learned, and then we both regular lifters (okay, we went to the gym every day and that was all we cared about back then), and now she’s also very involved in the fitness world (Her name is Cassandra Kilkenny and can also be found @Imcassk). In fact, she told me recently that “I couldn’t have done it with you” and that really, really meant a lot to me—especially now that fitness is so much a part of her life and business.
We wrote all of our workouts down, and tracked our progress in notebooks. We learned everything we could from others.
Then, I decided to start studying all this officially, and took my first kinesiology class, and it was so exciting because it was something that I would actually be graded on and I already had knowledge on.
Interviewer: So that was...junior year, you switch majors.
RM: Right, it was my junior year, I began studying kinesiology. I was a semester behind, because I had started out studying Geology. This is also around the time that I started training MMA.
Interviewer: That's kind of a big, big jump, right?! I mean, it’s one thing being fit, and another is a serious combat sport. So, tell us about that sort of mental and physical shift.
RM: It's a different type of challenge. MMA is a different world of fitness.
It's…it's a different level of fitness, because you need everything (everything!) and it all has to work together perfectly. I think that it was the first or second day and I said, “Yep. I’m in. Here, take all of my money.”
Interviewer: But what appealed to you about it? Was it just the higher level of conditioning?
RM: The challenge. It was the challenge. Because I knew that it would be the hardest thing I could possibly put myself through.
Okay. And I saw a motivational video that Ronda Rousey did when she was a big thing and that really inspired me.
Interviewer: And how often were you MMA training? Two to three times a week?
RM: Ha! Six times. I went six times a week, I jumped in. That's why I got hurt because I jumped from while I was weightlifting.
And I thought my body could handle it. And I jumped right into doing six days a week, Monday through Saturday. Three, four hours a day I was spending in that gym.
I would show up for every single class that was offered…so I got my money's worth! The women's class was at four and then fight team training, and then sparring is the last thing. Yeah, all I was doing was school and MMA for a while.
Interviewer: So you kept that up the rest of the last two years of college, and then you graduate with kinesiology degree. Then what?
RM: A month after graduating I took the NASM exam and that was my first personal training certification.
Interviewer: Did you know you were going to go into personal training specifically when you got the degree in kinesiology? Did you say, “Hey I want to go into physical training, one form or another, as a job, as a profession?
RM: Personal Training. And I thought I was just going to be a personal trainer, personally, just me, and have a good life just helping clients one-on-one. I didn’t really have a long-term plan; I just knew my passion was to help people with their fitness.
Interviewer: So right out of college you started looking for a job in the personal training field?
RM: Well, I skipped some things, that's okay I'm jumping around. I did an internship the last semester of my senior year, which took up most of my time. I was the strength and conditioning coach for the JMU cheerleading squad, which was the biggest responsibility that I had been handed so far.
I prepared the strength programming and wrote the workouts and then the other interns helped out with supervising the lifting. It was great practice for me because I was able to create and lead all of the programming. I was supervised, of course, but I learned so much in such a short amount of time, just from that hands on experience.
Halfway through my senior year, I found a job at the Wellness Center, and I got to quit my part-time waitressing job. It was all really tough on my schedule, but I am so grateful for that experience and opportunity. That whole semester, I don’t think I had a single day off anywhere. Maybe one.
Interviewer: So this is before you got your official personal training certification. You're just working as a fitness instructor at the Wellness Center helping out clients, learning practical application of what you were studying in school and your personal trainer certificate program.
RM: Yes, that’s right. Then I got my degree, NASM certification, was working at the Wellness Center and leading classes at the MMA gym. I was also working in the kid’s club at the Wellness Center, basically saying “just give me the opportunity and I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
At that point I talked to the head personal trainer, and he encouraged me to get my personal training certification, so he encouraged me to study for and earn the Academy of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) certification called the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD). (Editor's note, according to their website, “NCHPAD seeks to help people with disability and other chronic health conditions achieve health benefits through increased participation in all types of physical and social activities, including fitness and aquatic activities, recreational and sports programs, adaptive equipment usage, and more.”)
That one was tougher. But it kept me busy, something else to study for that could really help me help more people. I started Personal Training, somewhere in that time frame, after earning my certification. And also somewhere in there, I convinced them (the Wellness Center) to let me start teaching boxing, and I immediately started being recognized as #boxinggirl.
So that helped me, and eventually someone else left and they gave me a Fitness Specialist position.
Maybe a year almost a year later, they did a leadership restructuring and I became Head Personal Trainer. And then, later, I dropped down from that and went back to just personal training
Interviewer: Wow, yeah, that’s a lot of things that you've done to make you highly qualified to help people out now in your own fitness and wellness business. I mean, I think having that certification specialized on people with disabilities and chronic health issues, that's a huge thing. So many of us fall into one of those categories. And were there other certifications as well through national organizations?
RM: Just those two, and then the Rock Steady Boxing certification.
Interviewer: So it was your time at the MMA gym where you were leading the boxing classes and learning boxing techniques that gave you the inspiration to try to convince the Wellness Center, “Hey, we should incorporate this somehow in our programs for clients,” and as a result of that people started liking doing that boxing training—liking it a lot, actually--and at about the same time you bring you’re part of the team that brought Rock Steady Boxing into town. Okay, so those certifications provide you national certification to do individual and group fitness training, as well as personal training.
That's pretty cool. At some point, you stopped doing the MMA stuff to focus more on working with personal training clients and group fitness classes.
RM: Yeah, but I really liked it. Thinking about all, though, everything was driving me towards building my own fitness business. I mean, everything has really worked out in my favor, and I’m extremely grateful. One experience has just naturally led to the next, and then the next, and…here we are!
One of my clients told me about the Rock Steady Boxing program. And I looked into it. It was perfect. I'm the ideal candidate to run this program with having previous boxing experience, being a personal trainer. I already have the background knowledge to do this.
Interviewer: Yes, this is where I think you really shine, so I’m glad you’re bringing this up. You've always worked with the sort of non-traditional fitness seekers--with the exception of working with the college athletes--you're always worked really with just normal people who are just trying to get in a little bit better shape.
RM: Yeah, exactly, and I love it!
Interviewer: Right! One of the things I think people want to know…well, there's a ton of Fitness Trainers out there already. They probably want to know why or how are you different? They might be thinking, “I don't want to be a professional athlete, I just want to be a little bit stronger.” So being able to help normal people that just want to become healthier is important.
RM: Yes, yes. If you look at the gyms in the area, any area, there's so many gyms that target the same audience, and they're going after probably the smallest population. The small part of the population that's already fit that so they don't really need as much help and they already have so many options, and nobody targets the rest of the population. The elderly people with disabilities, people who have never stepped in a gym, people with injuries that are fearful they’ll hurt themselves again. Those are the people that need our help.
Interviewer: You're bringing fitness to all these people who maybe thought fitness was out of reach for them or behind them in the past and there's nothing they can do now, and you're showing us all, “No, this isn't true. Fitness and health can be with you your whole life. This is something you can do, no matter where you are now. There are modifications and improvements you can make that can dramatically increase your quality of life.”
RM: It’s so powerful to introduce boxing, for instance, to this population, because it's a great workout, for one, but it also provides people confidence. And to see that, to bring that to a person and see it in their face, see them light up and be excited about something again. That's special.
I mean we’re changing lives for the better every single day.
Interviewer: Do you get that a lot, that people just automatically associate boxing with some form of violence so they don't even think about it, they don't even give it a shot?
RM: I got that a lot when I first started out. People would just assume “There's no way I could, that I would be able to do something like that.” But once people see me working with other people, getting them results, bringing back health and vitality, people start to realize that anyone can do this and everyone can benefit from this type of physical activity.
Interviewer: Do you have a version of these workouts and exercises you could do somebody who's wheelchair bound?
RM: I did today, just this morning, actually. So yes, almost any exercise can be modified, adjusted to accommodate unique needs and situations.
Interviewer: What about online personal training? Do you do that, too?
RM: Yes, we are leveraging technology and pairing it with time-tested fitness fundamentals, and giving our clients the options that work best for them.
Interviewer: That's really good to hear. This has been just great, getting to know you better, hearing your story, and how you came to start your fitness business here in the Shenandoah Valley.
Any closing thoughts that you can think of that you’d like to share with everyone?
RM: Everything, even my setbacks, has been part of my journey and has led me here, to this business, to helping others get the most out of their physical lives as possible. Some things seemed really, really tough in the moment, but they’ve all happened for a reason and I am so happy to be here today, trained and ready to help others with their fitness journey.
Interviewer: We’re here with Raeann, getting to know how she came to be a personal trainer and boxing coach.
So it seems to me, people who might want to work with you—to train, to get in shape, to just feel better—they’re gonna want to know a little bit about you, because the qualifications don't mean anything to those who don’t know the business really. They want to know the person behind the fitness qualifications. So, tell us--how did you get into the fitness world to begin with? When did you start realizing that was something you wanted to do for others, and then, specifically, about some of the combative sports aspects of your journey. Ok, I’ll be quiet now.
RM: Well, it started all the way back in high school--actually, before high school. I've always been hyper-active and energetic. That’s one of the aspects of having ADHD (Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder) and learning to live with it and leverage it for success. From the time that I was learning how to crawl, I was a handful for my parents. Ha. One of my earliest memories is of my mom chasing me as I speed crawled away from her.
My parents put me in karate at age five and soccer at eight. At some point, my mom put me in girl scouts and it was a nightmare for me. Just not my cup of tea (It seems to be a great organization for others.).
Interviewer: So very, very short tenure as a Girl Scout.
RM: Haha, right. It lasted for about a year. I enjoyed the karate though. Looking back, it was probably a healthy outlet for me to release some energy.
By freshman year in high school, I discovered wrestling. Two of my closest friends in high school wanted to be managers for the wrestling team together. I thought that it would be a fun way for us to spend time together, but I was immediately interested in participating after watching the wrestlers practice. The intensity and quick pace was exciting and I loved the challenge of the sport.
My parents were less than thrilled about the idea. After a great deal of convincing, I was able to wrestle as a sophomore at age 15. Unfortunately, my season ended early due to breaking my clavicle during a practice. My parents no longer allowed me to participate after the incident so that was the end to my short wrestling career. Ha. I ended up participating in cross country and track for the remainder of high school though.
As I began college at James Madison University--Go, Dukes!—I discovered club wrestling at JMU with a friend. There were 20-30 members, and I was the only female.
Interviewer: What was that like?
RM: Ah, I felt pretty excluded. I could tell most of them didn't want anything to do with me, but I found a few people that welcomed me and I practiced with them. It was fun and exciting to rediscover combat sports. I participated in club wrestling for my freshman year and then discovered MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) as a junior.
Interviewer: Okay, so there was a little gap when you weren’t pursuing something athletic.
RM: No, let me backtrack. During my first semester of college, I followed the popular route in going to parties and eating all I could at the dining halls. After about three months of this lifestyle, I realized that I needed to make some adjustments in my lifestyle choices.
So, I am an all-or-nothing kind of person.. after my first semester of college, I made a big lifestyle change and adopted a clean style of eating and spending more time at the University gym.
I wasn’t familiar with any of the equipment in a gym, so I spent most of my time on cardio machines and doing some of the few exercises that I had seen other gym goers performing.
After a couple of months of following this routine, I came across a motivational CrossFit Video (fantastic marketing by the way.). It gave me the same feeling of watching wrestling for the first time. I contacted a friend that had some lifting experience and asked him to teach me some weightlifting basics, starting with a barbell deadlift and squat. And I was hooked. My new weightlifting obsession continued into my sophomore year.
Interviewer: Were you trying to do body building type of stuff or were you just getting stronger and fitter?
RM: Both, I think. I discovered that I'd like to compete in this somehow, and getting stronger was good for my self-esteem. A male friend of mine introduced me to lifting, but then a female friend of mine wanted to learn, so began sharing what I knew/learned, and then we both regular lifters (okay, we went to the gym every day and that was all we cared about back then), and now she’s also very involved in the fitness world (Her name is Cassandra Kilkenny and can also be found @Imcassk). In fact, she told me recently that “I couldn’t have done it with you” and that really, really meant a lot to me—especially now that fitness is so much a part of her life and business.
We wrote all of our workouts down, and tracked our progress in notebooks. We learned everything we could from others.
Then, I decided to start studying all this officially, and took my first kinesiology class, and it was so exciting because it was something that I would actually be graded on and I already had knowledge on.
Interviewer: So that was...junior year, you switch majors.
RM: Right, it was my junior year, I began studying kinesiology. I was a semester behind, because I had started out studying Geology. This is also around the time that I started training MMA.
Interviewer: That's kind of a big, big jump, right?! I mean, it’s one thing being fit, and another is a serious combat sport. So, tell us about that sort of mental and physical shift.
RM: It's a different type of challenge. MMA is a different world of fitness.
It's…it's a different level of fitness, because you need everything (everything!) and it all has to work together perfectly. I think that it was the first or second day and I said, “Yep. I’m in. Here, take all of my money.”
Interviewer: But what appealed to you about it? Was it just the higher level of conditioning?
RM: The challenge. It was the challenge. Because I knew that it would be the hardest thing I could possibly put myself through.
Okay. And I saw a motivational video that Ronda Rousey did when she was a big thing and that really inspired me.
Interviewer: And how often were you MMA training? Two to three times a week?
RM: Ha! Six times. I went six times a week, I jumped in. That's why I got hurt because I jumped from while I was weightlifting.
And I thought my body could handle it. And I jumped right into doing six days a week, Monday through Saturday. Three, four hours a day I was spending in that gym.
I would show up for every single class that was offered…so I got my money's worth! The women's class was at four and then fight team training, and then sparring is the last thing. Yeah, all I was doing was school and MMA for a while.
Interviewer: So you kept that up the rest of the last two years of college, and then you graduate with kinesiology degree. Then what?
RM: A month after graduating I took the NASM exam and that was my first personal training certification.
Interviewer: Did you know you were going to go into personal training specifically when you got the degree in kinesiology? Did you say, “Hey I want to go into physical training, one form or another, as a job, as a profession?
RM: Personal Training. And I thought I was just going to be a personal trainer, personally, just me, and have a good life just helping clients one-on-one. I didn’t really have a long-term plan; I just knew my passion was to help people with their fitness.
Interviewer: So right out of college you started looking for a job in the personal training field?
RM: Well, I skipped some things, that's okay I'm jumping around. I did an internship the last semester of my senior year, which took up most of my time. I was the strength and conditioning coach for the JMU cheerleading squad, which was the biggest responsibility that I had been handed so far.
I prepared the strength programming and wrote the workouts and then the other interns helped out with supervising the lifting. It was great practice for me because I was able to create and lead all of the programming. I was supervised, of course, but I learned so much in such a short amount of time, just from that hands on experience.
Halfway through my senior year, I found a job at the Wellness Center, and I got to quit my part-time waitressing job. It was all really tough on my schedule, but I am so grateful for that experience and opportunity. That whole semester, I don’t think I had a single day off anywhere. Maybe one.
Interviewer: So this is before you got your official personal training certification. You're just working as a fitness instructor at the Wellness Center helping out clients, learning practical application of what you were studying in school and your personal trainer certificate program.
RM: Yes, that’s right. Then I got my degree, NASM certification, was working at the Wellness Center and leading classes at the MMA gym. I was also working in the kid’s club at the Wellness Center, basically saying “just give me the opportunity and I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
At that point I talked to the head personal trainer, and he encouraged me to get my personal training certification, so he encouraged me to study for and earn the Academy of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) certification called the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD). (Editor's note, according to their website, “NCHPAD seeks to help people with disability and other chronic health conditions achieve health benefits through increased participation in all types of physical and social activities, including fitness and aquatic activities, recreational and sports programs, adaptive equipment usage, and more.”)
That one was tougher. But it kept me busy, something else to study for that could really help me help more people. I started Personal Training, somewhere in that time frame, after earning my certification. And also somewhere in there, I convinced them (the Wellness Center) to let me start teaching boxing, and I immediately started being recognized as #boxinggirl.
So that helped me, and eventually someone else left and they gave me a Fitness Specialist position.
Maybe a year almost a year later, they did a leadership restructuring and I became Head Personal Trainer. And then, later, I dropped down from that and went back to just personal training
Interviewer: Wow, yeah, that’s a lot of things that you've done to make you highly qualified to help people out now in your own fitness and wellness business. I mean, I think having that certification specialized on people with disabilities and chronic health issues, that's a huge thing. So many of us fall into one of those categories. And were there other certifications as well through national organizations?
RM: Just those two, and then the Rock Steady Boxing certification.
Interviewer: So it was your time at the MMA gym where you were leading the boxing classes and learning boxing techniques that gave you the inspiration to try to convince the Wellness Center, “Hey, we should incorporate this somehow in our programs for clients,” and as a result of that people started liking doing that boxing training—liking it a lot, actually--and at about the same time you bring you’re part of the team that brought Rock Steady Boxing into town. Okay, so those certifications provide you national certification to do individual and group fitness training, as well as personal training.
That's pretty cool. At some point, you stopped doing the MMA stuff to focus more on working with personal training clients and group fitness classes.
RM: Yeah, but I really liked it. Thinking about all, though, everything was driving me towards building my own fitness business. I mean, everything has really worked out in my favor, and I’m extremely grateful. One experience has just naturally led to the next, and then the next, and…here we are!
One of my clients told me about the Rock Steady Boxing program. And I looked into it. It was perfect. I'm the ideal candidate to run this program with having previous boxing experience, being a personal trainer. I already have the background knowledge to do this.
Interviewer: Yes, this is where I think you really shine, so I’m glad you’re bringing this up. You've always worked with the sort of non-traditional fitness seekers--with the exception of working with the college athletes--you're always worked really with just normal people who are just trying to get in a little bit better shape.
RM: Yeah, exactly, and I love it!
Interviewer: Right! One of the things I think people want to know…well, there's a ton of Fitness Trainers out there already. They probably want to know why or how are you different? They might be thinking, “I don't want to be a professional athlete, I just want to be a little bit stronger.” So being able to help normal people that just want to become healthier is important.
RM: Yes, yes. If you look at the gyms in the area, any area, there's so many gyms that target the same audience, and they're going after probably the smallest population. The small part of the population that's already fit that so they don't really need as much help and they already have so many options, and nobody targets the rest of the population. The elderly people with disabilities, people who have never stepped in a gym, people with injuries that are fearful they’ll hurt themselves again. Those are the people that need our help.
Interviewer: You're bringing fitness to all these people who maybe thought fitness was out of reach for them or behind them in the past and there's nothing they can do now, and you're showing us all, “No, this isn't true. Fitness and health can be with you your whole life. This is something you can do, no matter where you are now. There are modifications and improvements you can make that can dramatically increase your quality of life.”
RM: It’s so powerful to introduce boxing, for instance, to this population, because it's a great workout, for one, but it also provides people confidence. And to see that, to bring that to a person and see it in their face, see them light up and be excited about something again. That's special.
I mean we’re changing lives for the better every single day.
Interviewer: Do you get that a lot, that people just automatically associate boxing with some form of violence so they don't even think about it, they don't even give it a shot?
RM: I got that a lot when I first started out. People would just assume “There's no way I could, that I would be able to do something like that.” But once people see me working with other people, getting them results, bringing back health and vitality, people start to realize that anyone can do this and everyone can benefit from this type of physical activity.
Interviewer: Do you have a version of these workouts and exercises you could do somebody who's wheelchair bound?
RM: I did today, just this morning, actually. So yes, almost any exercise can be modified, adjusted to accommodate unique needs and situations.
Interviewer: What about online personal training? Do you do that, too?
RM: Yes, we are leveraging technology and pairing it with time-tested fitness fundamentals, and giving our clients the options that work best for them.
Interviewer: That's really good to hear. This has been just great, getting to know you better, hearing your story, and how you came to start your fitness business here in the Shenandoah Valley.
Any closing thoughts that you can think of that you’d like to share with everyone?
RM: Everything, even my setbacks, has been part of my journey and has led me here, to this business, to helping others get the most out of their physical lives as possible. Some things seemed really, really tough in the moment, but they’ve all happened for a reason and I am so happy to be here today, trained and ready to help others with their fitness journey.
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