A new kind of team
Competing in your sport may come to an end, but chasing your dreams doesn't have to.
I really do believe that one workout can change your life. And by change your life, I don’t just mean change your body. I believe it can change your whole attitude toward fitness and even your entire outlook on life.
When I finished my collegiate swimming career two years ago, I was lost.
I had lived and breathed the sport of swimming since I was 6 years old. When I was 8, I won state championships. When I was 12, I started training upwards of three hours a day. When I was 14, I developed an eating disorder in a failed attempt to change my diet so I could swim faster. When I was 15, I came back to the sport and also started coaching and teaching swim lessons at my neighborhood pool. When I was 16, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to swim in college, but when I was 17, I committed to swim at my dream school, Pepperdine University, and moved to Los Angeles to keep chasing my dreams in the sport I loved. In the college years that followed, I grew to love swimming more than ever.
Katie swam competitvely for 15 years and competed for Pepperdine University.
But when I touched the wall after the last race of my swimming career, I felt as if the world dropped out from underneath me.
As you can see, swimming was my life for almost longer than I can remember. While most kids grew up spending their weekends doing homework or out at parties, I spent mine on bus rides to travel trips or watching movies in my basement with teammates the night before early morning practices. I often found myself putting my social life, school and sometimes even my health on the back burner for a shot at swimming just a little bit faster. I met my closest friends and formed my most powerful relationships through the sport. It was my identity, and I loved everything about that.
But my 15-year swimming career had just come to an end. Now what?
It was a sunny Monday morning about a week after my last swim meet ever when I decided to try a workout at Pilates Plus Malibu. Some of my non-athlete friends swore by the studio, and after an entire week of failed attempts at cardio without a coach to tell me what to do, I decided it was time to switch things up. I threw on a baggy “Pepperdine Swim and Dive” T-shirt and boyish workout shorts and headed off to the sleek, ocean-view studio. “This won’t be that hard,” I thought. I was used to swimming over three hours a day and lifting weights on top of that. One hour of Pilates with a bunch of Malibu moms would be a breeze, right?
Wrong.
The 55 minutes that followed challenged me in ways I had never been challenged before. While I was used to intense cardio and heavy, fast reps, this workout — based on the Lagree Fitness method — challenges your balance and forces you to do moves slowly. I left the studio shaking and dripping in sweat, and, after being substantially defeated by Lululemon-clad Malibu moms, I swore I’d never go back.
I don’t know what compelled me to return to Pilates Plus a few days later. Maybe it was because I felt that I had unfinished business against those Malibu moms. Maybe it was because the workout made me more sore than I would get after even the hardest two-a-days of my swimming career. Maybe I was just curious to get involved in something different. Whatever my reason for returning, I’m sure glad I did.
Katie crossed the finish line of her first LA Marathon on March 19, 2017.
Over the weeks and months that followed, I went from feeling clumsy and uncoordinated to mastering advanced moves, I saw changes in my body, and those Malibu moms became my team. I looked forward to my daily workouts and even started helping around the studio. I invited my friends to try the workout and got a few of them hooked as well. Pilates Plus filled the void that swimming had left because it gave me goals to work toward and a group of people to share a common experience with. Not only did it fill the void, but it also showed me that it’s fun to try something new.
And the effects of my workouts at Pilates Plus didn’t stop at the end of class. Overall, I felt more confident in my body. I felt stronger during other workouts. I met and learned from clients of all different backgrounds, who encouraged me to try new things.
Pilates Plus influenced me to go after lifelong goals. I’ve wanted to run a marathon since I was a kid, and I decided that 2017 was the year to do it. I signed up for the LA Marathon, and on March 19, I threw my hands up as I crossed the finish line after one of the most challenging yet rewarding accomplishments of my life. If I had never tried working out at Pilates Plus, I never would have had the drive to step out of my comfort zone and accomplish a once-distant goal.
Working out at Pilates Plus is also what inspired me to do this project. I chose to report on LA fitness trends because I have witnessed fitness change and inspire so many Angelenos in the same way it changed and inspired me. Whether it is done through boutique studios, a traditional gym or even at your local park, exercise is an integral part of our culture, and it is important to discuss how workouts are evolving.
While boutique studios are becoming increasingly popular in LA in general, the ways we work out can also evolve in our own personal journeys. I lived and breathed swimming for 15 years, but becoming a part of the boutique fitness community changed my life for the better.
I’m not saying that everyone will be changed by a Lagree Fitness studio or even boutique fitness in general, but I do think everyone is capable of finding that one workout that clicks with them. Whatever that workout might be, I really do believe that it has the power to have a positive impact on other aspects of your life. Boutique fitness studios provide more options than ever before for people to find their fit, and I think that in and of itself is worth being talked about.
Fitness has forever been and will forever be an essential part of my life, and I encourage everyone to get out there, try new workouts and run with them. You never know where they might take you.