Shannon’s Fitness Journey

Welcome back!

Today’s podcast was a request from one of our listeners. As Nick has shared his fitness story in the past, it was time to share Shannon’s.

Before we get into the main dish, we ask that you take a couple minutes and share the podcast with someone. It’s easy as pie, you can text an episode via the Apple Podcast app or just share our website – addictedtofitnesspodcast.com – with them.  

Today’s “Listeners Talk Back” section includes a review from listener and friend, Lindsay Roberts. We read her iTunes review. 

Leave a review in iTunes/on the Apple Podcasts app for a chance to have your review read on the show!

Training Recap

Nick has been adding in more group training classes to his personal training schedule including a stick mobility class at Tampa Strength, group boxing/kickboxing classes at Title Boxing in South Tampa, and a small group workout at Essential Balance Holistic Wellness Center in our very own neighborhood.

Shannon finally has a training recap! After keeping the training relatively light over the last few months, she’s returned to a more robust weekly routine.  Why? Well, any of the moms out there might understand. Did you embrace your own softness more after having a baby? Though being a bit more on the soft side was great with a small infant, now that Ella has developed some serious movement skills (Shannon’s exact words = “little human tornado”) the time to refocus Shannon’s training on strength and mobility has come back in a big way. Weekly training now includes a balance of yoga, HITT and spinning. It’s all about mobility, flexibility and functional strength so that she can keep up with Ella.

Shannon’s Fitness Journey

  • Shannon comes from very athletic parents. Her dad has been a lifelong swimmer but looks like a former football player, while her mom was an avid runner and super healthy eater. So there was some encouragement/pressure to be at a certain fitness level.
  • She was introduced to yoga at age 12 by her mom after her parents split up. 
  • Throughout her elementary school years, she was always in a sport (gymnastics, figure skating, basketball), but by the time she got to Junior High she found herself in a “frumpy” phase and she knew she had to find a training modality that she really enjoyed. Oddly enough it ended up being competitive cheerleading.
  • She fell in love with cheerleading in high school as it turned out that it had all the elements she loved – social, physically challenging and competitive.
  • Following high school, she ended up having a number of injuries that she had to recover from. She practiced kickboxing to keep up.
  • Starting in college and moving into her 20s she went thru a bit of a workout addiction, trying to fit in workouts 6-7 days a week, sometimes two workouts in a day. It was easy to think that was what was needed given her muscular and athletic body type and active mentality.
  • Around that same time, she registered for a personal training certification course, but life took a hard turn thanks to the recession of 2008 and the ending of a relationship. These events prompted her to move back to Florida which derailed her personal training certification process.
  • Thanks to Nick, however, she got into triathlon training when they first started dating. Though she’s only completed one sprint triathlon, it taught her a lot about the intense training needed for those type of endurance events. She chose a range of training modalities (HIIT, pure barre, Crossfit, etc.) after that to satisfy her fitness passions. 
  • After all of that, the training modalities/styles she keeps coming back to are yoga, spinning and HIIT. 
  • The main lesson? Similar to her fitness journey is that there is no ONE way to approach health and fitness, you have to be open to new information and learning. 

Her story concludes with the final takeaway about the search for learning your own fitness passions. Keep searching for your own preferred training style, and be open to it taking on different forms throughout your life. It should change and grow with you. Here she is, having had a baby in the last year and after a year and a half allowing pregnancy/parenting to reconnect with some of her favorite forms of fitness.

Regardless of our workout, we are still enjoying our coffee, especially when it’s from our sponsors The Hemp & Coffee Exchange. Make sure to visit their website, hempcoffeeexchange.com, read about their awesome products, and use our exclusive promo code “ATF” at checkout to get 20% off your order. You should also visit the “Exchange” portion of their website to view products that would pair well with their delicious coffee.

Be sure to head to the ATF Facebook page and let us know what you thought of this week’s episode. We’d also love it if you shared your impressions of the podcast in a rating & review on the Apple Podcasts app.

Episode Links

Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/shannons-fitness-journey/id1121420986?i=1000412405515&mt=2

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nick-burch-702220833/shannons-fitness-journey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4KESchsx6XteFJIH2Jp4mH?si=Ixkk9QTrQn6vezMQsVhQew

Stick Mobility