Breakthrough Spotlight
Carol Barker
Our Breakthrough Spotlight Member for June is Carol Barker! Carol never backs down from a challenge, and her dedication to her training is a big inspiration to all of her training partners!
Breakthrough: Carol, we are so glad to have you as our spotlight member this month! You are just a pleasure to train every time you come in, and you’ve really accomplished so much! Tell us what you were doing and how you were feeling before you joined us at Breakthrough.
Carol: Right before joining I’d been doing a lot of walking as my exercise, but I wanted to do more and I had been hearing about you guys for years. Many of my friends were telling me, “you’ve got to get in there”. And I thought, yeah, I should… and then one day you called and said “hey, I heard you were thinking about joining us”… so I figured it was time to come check it out!
Breakthrough: Oh yeah, if we hear through the grapevine that someone we know is curious about this we will definitely reach out to let you know you are welcome! So what made you feel like you were ready to get started?
Carol: Well, when you invited me to come in and meet with you, you said we would do an evaluation to see how I moved and what exercises would be good for me. And I thought that was interesting because I have gone to a lot of gyms in the past, but no one ever did an evaluation like that before. And you let me know not to worry about the things I didn’t feel like I could do, because there are plenty of things we can do, and we will focus on those. I thought that was cool!
Breakthrough: Right, you’ve done so well with focusing on the things you can do, and gradually chipping away at more challenging things, and you’ve made some really great progress! First of all, we were just talking the other day that one of your goals is weight loss, and you’ve lost quite a bit!
Carol: Yes, I’m down three sizes in some clothes, 4 sizes in others.
Breakthrough: That’s so great! And I know another big goal for you is feeling more comfortable getting up and down off the floor.
Carol: I haven’t tried it completely on my own, but I do feel like now I could.
Breakthrough: Yes, we’ve worked on it here at the gym and given you a couple of options so that now you know you can get up from kneeling, or walking your hands up from a plank position. So finding that confidence and seeing that progress has to feel really good!
Carol: It does!
Breakthrough: That’s awesome! Anything else you’ve achieved you weren’t necessarily expecting?
Carol: Well, I didn’t really expect this change in strength. I don’t know why… It didn’t occur to me that I would be getting a lot stronger. And there’s no doubt about that! I’m doing things that I couldn’t have envisioned doing, and they get better and better!
Breakthrough: Fantastic!
Carol: Today I was doing sled pulls with 45 pounds, and I thought, I hate to say this, but this is pretty easy and next time I should go heavier.
Breakthrough: Oh yes! It’s so great when you can really see those improvements in your strength, and you’ve probably noticed that you are stronger in things you do outside of the gym too.
Carol: Oh tons of things! Just about everything! I do climb stairs a lot easier than I did, and I just move better!
Breakthrough: That has to be a big part of your “why”…
Carol: It is! And it’s just really rewarding to be here at the gym. It’s really great to work with you guys, and to work alongside the other people training here. To get to know everyone here, and feel their encouragement is just amazing!
Breakthrough: We feel really lucky that everyone here is supportive of each other’s goals, and it means so much to us to have a community of awesome people who really care about each other.
Carol: I’ll give you an example – I was working in my program on coming from kneeling to standing and I did it once, and then said to myself, “ok, you can do it again.” And one of the guys training with me, Nick, said “oh yes you can! I know you can!” And it’s one thing when you guys tell us we can do it… I believe you because you are the coaches. But to have someone else believe in you who is training alongside you, it’s just really amazing. I tell everyone this is the greatest gym ever invented!
Breakthrough: Oh thank you so much! That means a lot to us! Yes we know that to have the support of your training partners makes such a huge difference in creating a positive environment! There’s no challenge we have thrown your way that you haven’t been able to tackle, and we really look forward to seeing you keep going and keep getting stronger!
Carol: Thank you!