My fitness journey…

As a kid, I did gymnastics, I played soccer, some lacrosse and volleyball. As I got older volleyball clearly became “my sport,” not just because of my height (I’m 5’11), but because it was the sport that I couldn’t seem to get enough of. When I got to high school, I had just finished my first season playing club volleyball, and I was starting on my school’s varsity team. As I continued to play, my aspirations to play at the collegiate level started to become reality. I was going to showcases and I started to talk to some coaches. For my first two and a half years for high school, volleyball was my whole world. It was the only thing I did and probably the only topic I talked about. Since I had been playing so much, I did not pay attention to what I was eating or how I looked. My only worries were how high I could get my vertical or how many kills I could get in a match. 

During the summer of 2015, my mom brought me to a indoor cycling studio called Flywheel Sports. She had been asking me for weeks to go with her and I finally gave in just so she would stop asking me (sorry mom<3). Little did I know, that one class that I took would change my outlook on fitness forever. The class was incredible and I had never had so much fun working out. 

Soon after that, I bought a student membership and I would go to Flywheel every chance I got when I wasn’t playing volleyball. As I started to become a regular, I became a student ambassador for the company and I Flywheel slowly started to become my new identity besides “the volleyball girl.” When it came down to the end of my junior year, volleyball was starting to take a backseat to all the work I was doing at Flywheel, and honestly, I was enjoying taking 6 to 7 classes a week more than I did volleyball practice. It came down to a hard choice after my last club season if I wanted to continue in my journey to play college volleyball. Ultimately, with the injuries I had suffered and my growing love for boutique fitness, I decided that my senior volleyball season was going to be my last. That season, we ended up winning our region championship for the first time in school history and making it to the 2ndround of the state playoffs. 

After my volleyball career came to an end, I took my second semester of high school to focus on myself. I was a Flywheel addict and the summer before I went to Auburn, I got an instructing job at pūrvelo. Pūrvelo was a cycle studio that was opening up in Auburn that January and I spent my whole first semester training for the opening. Through this job I met some awesome people and I was falling in love with indoor cycling even more. 

But last November, my outlook on strength training changed when I took my first class at Barry’s Bootcamp. That day is when I learned how important weight training is in a workout routine. For the past two years I had been just doing cardio, cardio, and more cardio. I realized that this was a problem because I was no longer seeing changes in my body; I had plateaued. Barry’s is the perfect combination of cardio (running) and strength training. Since I was going to school in Auburn, I would try and come home as much as I could to attend classes. 

After my freshman year, I got a job at Barry’s and this past summer was maybe one of the best ones I have ever had. I saw a major change in my body and I had a new-found strength (let me know if you want a post about Barry’s). 

To wrap this up, I guess my main piece of advice is to not be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try new workouts. Also, if you’re a girl, lifting is just as important as cardio. Trust me.  

-KK

Spring 2019.