Still Standing Strength

I spent years believing strength meant pushing through.

Keep going.
Work harder.
Take care of everyone else.
Don't let anyone see you struggle.

From the outside, I looked strong. I was raising my kids, helping run a family business, training, competing, showing up every day, and somehow keeping all the pieces together.

What no one saw was that I had spent years surviving instead of healing.

Like so many women, I learned how to function long before I learned how to process what life had handed me. I stayed busy because being busy meant I didn't have to slow down long enough to feel the weight I was carrying. Work became an escape. Fitness became another one. 

Then life stopped giving me places to hide.

The demands of the family business, becoming a single mom, building a new business from the ground up, watching my son leave for military service, and losing my sixteen-year-old nephew forced me to face everything I had spent years outrunning.

Healing didn't happen overnight.

It came through hundreds of small decisions that no one else could make for me. I had to learn that real strength isn't found in carrying more. It's found in finally putting some of it down.

That journey changed every part of my life.

Still Standing Strength wasn't built because I have all the answers. It was built because I know what it feels like to lose yourself while you're busy surviving, and I know what it's like to find yourself again.

Today I'm a NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, and Corrective Exercise Specialist. I'm also a single mom, co-owner of a family manufacturing business, and someone who still chooses, every day, to keep growing.

I don't expect perfection from the women I coach.

I simply want to help them discover what I eventually discovered:

The strength you've been searching for was never missing.

It's been there all along.

 

Built Through Experience

Movement and athletics have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I started gymnastics at two and a half years old and trained for the next ten years. From there, I competed in track and field and volleyball, eventually finding my way into strength training, powerlifting, triathlons, obstacle races, and endurance events.

Over the years, I've pushed myself through challenges I once wasn't sure I could finish, including 25K and 50K endurance races and Tough Mudder events. I've experienced what it feels like to train for something that requires months of preparation, to keep going when your body and mind are tired, and to discover that you're capable of far more than you thought.

My experience hasn't only been as an athlete. I've also spent years teaching boxing, kickboxing, and CrossFit-style training. Those experiences taught me that there is no single definition of strength and no single way to build it.

Today, I bring that experience together with my education as a NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Coach, and Corrective Exercise Specialist.

My approach to coaching looks at the whole person. Strength and progress don't happen in isolation. Stress, work, family responsibilities, sleep, previous injuries, movement limitations, nutrition, and the realities of everyday life all affect how we train and recover.

That's why I don't believe in forcing someone into a program simply because it looks good on paper. I build training around the individual in front of me: where you are now, what your body needs, what you want to accomplish, and what will realistically work in your life.

Strength training, corrective exercise, movement quality, and nutrition coaching can all be part of that process. And when something falls outside my scope of practice, I'll refer you to the appropriate healthcare professional. Knowing when another professional needs to be part of the team is an important part of responsible coaching.

Whether we work together in my private training studio or online, I'm not here to turn you into someone else.

I'm here to help you become stronger, more capable, and more confident in the person you already are.