After 5: Time to Get Personal?

Whether the objective is to lose big or just tone the abs, fine-tuning the art of exercise sometimes takes a professional.

Some area businesspeople look to Tammy Eaton, personal trainer and owner of Git Fit Headquarters, to gain the strength and stamina needed to maintain a busy lifestyle.

At her gym, 640 W. Republic Road, Ste. 108, in Corporate Village, Eaton works with approximately 30 clients, including Coldwell Banker Vanguard Realtor Ethel Curbow.

“I’ve always exercised and gone to exercise classes, but I’d never had a trainer,” Curbow says.

She met Eaton five years ago on a referral from one of Curbow’s clients – who Curbow says “had the nicest arms” – and now she and Eaton work together up to three times a week. Curbow says that with her busy schedule, the only way is to set specific times and stick to them.

“It gives me a respite from the day and forces me to think of something else for an hour,” Curbow says of the one-hour personal training sessions. “And it kind of refreshes you … to get back to your job.”

Eaton says it’s key to schedule times that are convenient for each client.

“If you make it too difficult and too much of a stress on top of what they are already dealing with, it makes it not fun,” says Eaton, a trainer of 14 years, who starts her hourly sessions at $50. “You have to watch the effects of stress. A lot of the tightness from literally business stress changes the training course that I take.”

With Curbow, Eaton has structured at least 15 minutes of cardio work, followed by targeted weight training. Eaton changes up the routines to keep things interesting, then adds in a variety of flexibility exercises.

“We never do the same thing twice,” says Curbow, who lost 30 pounds prior to the training and has maintained her new weight, while gaining strength and flexibility.

David Wells, president of Rogersville-based Undercover Truck Bed Covers, a division of E.D. Industries Inc., is one of Eaton’s newer clients.

Wells has been working out since his youth and often gets bored with exercise routines, but he says Eaton’s style and suggestions keep him on his toes.

“I’m a very active person, but at 50, I’ve paid for all of my earlier years of running and stressing my knees, stressing my ankles,” he says. “Like everyone who’s older, my metabolism has changed.”

Wells decided to work with a personal trainer after watching NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” and beginning a self-modified Weight Watchers diet. After losing about 30 pounds, he wanted to increase his strength and muscle tone, and began training with Eaton in November.

Eaton uses a technique called muscle confusion, which he says brings variety and challenge to the workout.

“I was pretty spent the first day we did it,” he says.

Wells starts with 10 minutes of cardio, then moves on to weights, isometric training, and back to weights to isolate muscle groups.

“She has a lot of really creative techniques – anything from weights to a unique form of push-ups,” says Wells, who has a goal of losing 50 pounds. “It’s as easy as holding a weight in your hands and stepping onto a step 20 times. I would not think of that as an aggressive workout, but it’s an exhausting workout.

“I don’t do things that make me hurt. She made me do things that make me hurt. But we just did it in a more controlled environment, and I surprised myself that I could do what I wouldn’t try on my own.”[[In-content Ad]]