Kristin
I became a personal trainer after I went through my own personal weight loss transformation through the inspiration of my Dad. At the time I was about 26-27 years old and was working in an industry I hated. I got pretty into fitness competing starting with Galaxy Federation obstacle course and physique shows, which led to NPC Figure competitions. I worked with a trainer in Hawaii at the time who taught me how to train and diet for competition, and from that point, I was in love with the field. I decided to get my trainer certification and started training clients outside of my job simply because I loved it, and I loved what it did for me. I wanted to help other people feel the way I did. This love led to developing a large clientele, becoming a registered dietitian and getting a masters in exercise physiology from Columbia. At a certain point, it made sense to open a facility dedicated to personal training and nutrition, so I opened IronPlate Studios in 2013.
Caitlin
I never wanted personal training to be my career! I started off in college wanting to be an athletic trainer so I could work with sports teams: be first on-site for injuries and live the glamorous life traveling with a team. I changed courses slightly once I started some volunteer clinical hours for athletic training. It was a male dominated industry and I didn’t have the confidence or comfort in myself yet to thrive in it. I was working as a personal trainer at a boxing gym while attending college in Buffalo and interning in Rochester, NY and didn’t love it. Clients weren’t motivated, it was a lot of selling (which I’m terrible at!) and a lot of cleaning equipment with toothbrushes in my downtime. My vision of what personal training was and could be was skewed.
My new career path led me to want to work in medical fitness, specifically cardiac rehabilitation. (A bit of a jump in the opposite direction from working with athletes!). I completed my internship at a cardiac rehabilitation program and fell in love with the personal connections made and how much change I could help make in someone’s life. My first job out of college was working for a medical fitness center where I worked with a variety of clientele through all stages of life as well as in the cardiology department performing Exercise Tolerance Tests. After some time, I finally was also able to dabble in their cardiac rehabilitation department. When I moved to Hoboken, there weren’t many medical fitness options available, but I found Kristin’s website and was intrigued with the idea of working in a private studio for one other person whose background and visions were similar to mine, where I had the freedom to train people my way. (And a lot more confidence and experience under my belt than my college days!). I didn’t have to do any cold sales calls or scrub machines with toothbrushes….I was sold! What an amazing difference training privately versus for a large corporation. I fell in love with my clients who wanted to be there and were eager to learn and the process of watching them slowly transform before my eyes. Also, coming in to work with Kristin close to the ground floor and helping her expand and evolve her business has been a fascinating learning experience for me.