BAM Fitness Coaching

Image via Wikipedia

This past weekend, a group of my friends came to see my new gym.  The strange part about it all was that some of us were just meeting for the first time. . .

Last year, while I was losing weight, I stumbled upon a message board on Weight Watchers online community for women who lift weights.  I’d found a group I had something in common with – they all believe in lifting heavy, they all want muscle and to be strong, and they all have lost weight on WW and by lifting.  So, over the past year and a half, I’ve gotten to “know” everyone pretty well. 

While I was making plans to open my gym, they were making plans to have a surprise meet up in Wisconsin – in January!  Who comes to Wisconsin in January?  Willingly?  I’ll introduce you!

MJ is a mom and a professional, but more importantly, she’s an HKC kettlebell instructor.  Not only does she know her stuff, but she is amazingly fit.  What I haven’t mentioned yet is that is she 8 months pregnant and can (with relative ease) do a Turkish Get-up on each side with a 20kg (44 lbs).  We all watched in amazement!  (I’ll post a video soon.)  She also spent a while teaching everyone in the group how to do a KB swing and how to do Turkish Get-ups. 

Melly is the chin-up queen of our group.  We all aspire to do real chin-ups, but she was able to get up on the chin-up bar, and crank out both chin-ups and pull-ups while we all watched.  She is also a mom and works full-time as an engineer. 

Donna, one of the yoga lovers of our group, not only can dead lift quite a bit of weight, but she has also lost 120 pounds since she started Weight Watchers. . . all through healthy eating, weightlifting, running and yoga.  Donna is truly inspiring! 

Jane, is the yoga instructor of the group.  Jane spent part of one afternoon leading a group yoga class for everyone.  She’s got such a calm, soothing way about her that even I’d like to take yoga from her.  I forgot to mention that Jane is TINY!  Although she is right around 5′ tall, she is quite a dynamo and can power through wall balls, burpees, ropes, and kickboxing. 

Kit-Tay is a true a$$-kicker.  She spent 26 years in the Army, was a drill instructor for part of that time and survived the 9/11 attack at the Pentagon.  Listening to her story was amazing.  She is also a yoga lover, weight lifter, and Harley rider with her hubba, hubba, hubby!

Cim has her Black Belt in TKD.  She and my son had plenty to chat about, which was cute.  Cim did some kickboxing demonstration and everyone watched her pound on the bag with awe.  She is so fast and powerful and made me realize I’ve got some work to do!  I’ll be getting video of this to share soon.

Holly was the stand-up comic of the group and pretty much kept everyone laughing the entire weekend.  I’d have to assume that she is our group’s push-ups queen – and seems to enjoy doing them!  She also was able to get a rather large kettlebell up over her head with ease, too.  Impressive!  Holly, thank you for making me and everyone else laugh so much (& talking shop/video games with my son!). 

My weekend was lovely.  I’d met a couple of the ladies before, but not everyone.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out and if everyone would gel.  Turns out, that we all acted like we’ve been friends for a very long time.  There were laughs, great conversation, workouts (of course), and some new friendships made. 

Thank you, ladies!