Thank you for being a part of this journey with me! Since you're here, I might as well do a full introduction. As a fair warning, I may have been told once or twice in my life I talk too much (looking at you every report card in elementary school)- sorry not sorry.
If you had asked me when I was in college what I would be doing 5 years after graduation, I sure as shit wouldn't have guessed this! To be honest, personal training didn't start as a passion for me. It started as a means to an ends. I thought it would be a good starter job to have while I was in college since I could work weird hours and still make it to my classes. When I graduated from college, I used it as a "filler" job while I figured my life out. I worked at the big box gyms (hated them), some of the smaller family run gyms (better, but not great) and finally found my way into an amazing fitness studio. Honestly if I didn't get that job, I probably would have quit training all together. It took the right environment for me to really see how powerful and impactful being a trainer can be! When that gym closed, I still wasn't fully convinced this was a CAREER for me. I ended up taking a few clients as a traveling personal trainer because I had no job and loved it, but it was challenging to find places we could workout. And these Massachusetts winters put a damper on outdoor workouts. I ended up finding a job working in a physical therapy clinic. I truly did enjoy my time working in here. I loved helping the patients and seeing them progress. I decided to go back to school and get my Physical Therapy Assistant. I LOVED it. I loved the program I went to, and the curriculum was genuinely fascinating to me. I learned so much about the body. And then, COVID happened and the world closed. School moved online, and I got fired from my physical therapy job. Most of my personal training clients (I think I had 5 at the time) took a break or moved to Zoom sessions.
Because gyms closed, my boyfriend (now husband!) and I turned part of our garage into a bare bones "gym" that we could workout in. [As an aside here, try taking garage space from a mechanic- NOT EASY. I still have no idea why he said yes lol.] If you were in the fitness world at the time, you remember that it was literally impossible to get your hands on any exercise equipment, and if you could, it was triple the price. We had 2 different sized dumbbells, a BOSU ball that Joe got me as a gift a few months before and an old tractor tire he found on a job site. I had these shitty foam mats that I found at Ocean State Job Lot that I threw on the floor to cover the grease and oil stains. Thats it.
I came out here everyday and posted my workouts to my Instagram or Facebook pages. It was genuinely just supposed to be that- a place where I could record videos to share with my online clients, and a place where I could get my workout in.
In May 2020 an old client of mine reached out and asked me if I would be willing to train her in person at the garage gym- shoutout to you Kara! Honestly, I am not sure why she kept coming back lol. The "gym" was not even a gym lol. It was the least fancy, least flashy thing ever. All of Joe's garage stuff was shoved into the other bay so we had just enough room to move around. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. After Kara, came Donna, and Sarah, and so many other beautiful friends that have stuck with me through all the growth we have seen in the last two years.
As tragic as it was for so many people, COVID was the best thing that could have happened to me. It forced me to level up. It forced me to dive in and take a huge risk. It forced me to adapt and overcome. It forced me to make it work, because if it didn't, my bills were not getting paid. I kept telling myself "it will work, because it HAS to work". And it fucking did. It worked. And the more it worked, the more I realized that it worked because it was where I was meant to be. It felt real. It felt like me. It felt right.
When the world sort of opened back up again in the fall of 2020, I had the opportunity to go back to school to finish my PTA classes. It was an easy choice not to go back, and to keep working at making the garage gym a true success. I miss my friends and my professors from the PTA program, but working for myself, creating Flow Fitness is exactly where I was meant to be.
So here we are two years later! I see over 50 clients weekly, and wouldn't trade it for the world. Some days are harder than others, but even the hard days are worth it!
Thank you for being a part of this journey, wether you are a client, a prospective client or just an internet stalker I appreciate you! I look forward to being able to use this platform in whatever way feels true and honest for me, hopefully you enjoy it!!
In health,
Rose