NYC Hustle and Group Fitness: we survived and lived to tell the tale...
Missy's destination was living large in pharmaceutical sales…
I went to college for nutrition and my side hustle was personal training. At the time, I needed health benefits and wanted a clear career with a path, neither of which training afforded. During my last semester in college I decided to apply to work for a prestigious pharmaceutical company and pursue a career in sales.
I landed a pretty cush job before tossing my tassel and saying goodbye to my college roommates: free car, expense account, endless socializing and traveling. I was living pretty nice for a 20-something post-grad, without a care in the world.
Despite the perks, a few year in I was craving something from my past...
I missed seeing clients and working in the preventative side of health. Programming sessions, helping people work towards their goals and troubleshooting injuries were fun and fulfilling. Most of all, I missed genuine connections with people and feeling like I was really making a difference.
Although I was pursuing business school at the time (on the company's dime) I decided to make a life change and dive into my college NYC fitness hustle.
I started at Reebok Gym on the Upper West Side (now owned by Equinox). I quickly went from dropping prescription drug samples at hospitals to picking up medicine balls. Even with the uncertainty, I had never been happier. Money was never my motivator: changing people's lives was always my passion.
Reebok was a fun place to work, people watch (celebrity sightings and such), connect and start my fitness career for the second time around. I worked with OG NYC trainers like Kira Stokes and Alexa Silvaggio. I kept up with all the socializing The City is made for, but in my own fitness way!
Through all of this, I wanted to establish myself as a respected trainer, but was also intrigued by the group fitness world. Class Pass had started to explode and a client introduced me to the founder (which got me thinking). I decided to create a bodyweight class of my own and rent a space outside of Reebok. My husband Geraldo would often DJ the class and we created a following. It was fun and it was a hustle!
I came home sweaty from my classes, checked in with every person that took my class (even Lacee's brother once, he almost threw up) and put my all into every single session. It was a lot of work, but it was mine.
Fast forward to present day: I have taught many different group classes over the years, from "mommy and me" to kettlebells and bodyweight. I learned I love the grind, the people and fitness through the good the bad and the ugly.
I am here to stay!
Lacee's seen more half naked homeless men than anyone should in a lifetime...
I never thought I would teach group fitness, but I always looked up to group fitness instructors in NYC from afar…
When I was new to the city and working for lululemon (10-year career before training full time), I was able to take unlimited free fitness classes (crazy, right?), which led to me trying anything and everything available at the time. I dabbled in SoulCycle (the studio spin craze was just beginning in 2010), found a friend group and home at FlyWheel, would hustle to Physique 57 and yoga classes without missing a beat. Sometimes I would take two classes a day for work and fun; both because I was a workout addict and seriously lacking a social life after moving to a new place.
Through these classes, I met instructors and marveled at their glamorous-looking lives.
There was an SLT instructor that seemed to flutter between modeling jobs, teaching megaformer classes and wearing her Tom Ford sunglasses at impossible to get inside restaurants.
My 26-year-old-NYC-newbie-self thought the fitpro life seemed pretty fucking fabulous.
Then, there was the SoulCycle instructor that was a total bitch to everyone in class and after (or maybe it was just me), but would sell out so fast you’d be sweating hitting “click” at 12pm on Mondays to reserve a bike. Very Regina George vibes, but that masochistic NYC crowd showed up for it.
My ultimate love (and almost the first studio I taught classes at) was Refine Method, which combined kettlebells, dumbbells and a patented weighted pulley system for resistance training workouts. I frequented the studio a lot when I was a new personal trainer and coming off running the 2014 NYC marathon. Refine was created by a former professional ballerina with a Harvard degree (who by the way, eventually went on to create and sell the company Mirror). About a year in, she asked me to audition to teach (which gave me hives because actual Rockettes teach fitness in NYC). I decided to get out of my comfort zone and try.
It was really scary (I almost peed myself), but I did it and was offered a teaching job on my birthday. I ended up declining the job because I wasn’t quite ready to pull the trigger on giving up personal training clients to make maintaining a studio schedule possible. Refine wanted a full commitment; after crunching the numbers, I couldn’t understand how group fitness instructors actually paid their rent.
That small step and all the years spent training with and idolizing instructors set the tone for the universe sucking me into the group fitness vortex…
My first real gig teaching group fitness was at a studio called Exceed Physical Culture in NYC. It was an independent personal training gym with two locations and I was already seeing a few private clients there. The owner eventually asked me to audition to teach HIIT and TRX classes in their two studio locations and for once, it actually made sense regarding maintaining a somewhat “normal” schedule.
Exceed gave me an amazing start to my second career as a trainer. Learning from the trainers there, programming and teaching my own classes and developing a community around me was indispensable to my growth and my future. I don’t know how I would have done it without them, as someone that had never technically been employed full time by a gym. I was introduced to kettlebells and StrongFirst at Exceed, which obviously set me up to do what I do today.
Sometime in 2016, I woke up and realized that I was a trainer and group fitness instructor in NYC with my own little following. I was usually waking up at 5am and hustling myself to the Upper East Side, Brooklyn or Tribeca training clients, but I was doing it.
For two years, I worked insane hours, starting early and finishing late. I didn’t come up for air. It was simultaneously terrible and amazing; I was doing it on my own, but also exhausted, paying for my own health insurance for the first time and wondering how hot yoga instructors in Tribeca made it look so easy.
They had rich husbands and Tom Ford sunglasses; I had a five floor walk up and no more corporate job 401(K).
I will never regret the hustle of NYC fitness and the first two years that led to the next two and the next two. Anything worth working for, especially without a company or a safety net to fall back on, is usually worth it, even if it doesn’t garner an outwardly “successful” result at first.
Two years of the hustle gave me grit and elevated my work ethic to a new level.
Those two years led me to my next group fitness job at Fhitting Room, where I learned to run a classroom with military precision, all while teaching with a teammate (we had two instructors to lead one class).
Fhitting Room gave me exposure to new clients/peers, media opportunities, education opportunities and hours to perfect my own teaching style. I became a better trainer and better at business from working in that environment.
Fhitting Room (specifically my fellow trainer Matt Forzaglia) led me to NeoU, where I started Bells Up and began filming digital classes. My time at NeoU solidified that a transition to digital was possible for me and I worked hard to absorb and learn as much as I could from teaching on camera, the production team and developing a teaching style with kettlebells that could translate through a screen and be great.
Little did I know, that year at NeoU would prepare me to teach my own pandemic Zoom classes and develop my own app.
My NYC fitness story didn’t start with a gig that propelled me into the spotlight, the security of a brand or overnight social media stardom. It literally began pounding the pavement, riding subways at 6am on a Saturday (the amount of pants-less homeless men I have seen is unbelievable) and saying yes to the right opportunities. There were so many meals on the go, times I took “baby wipe showers” after a workout to make it on time to the next thing, late nights, early mornings, stress about saving money…
It wasn’t anything like I imagined it to be from the outside.
I recognize that there were many doors that opened up to me (let’s be real) because of how I look (young, white girl, blonde, abs). The fitness industry back then (and even today) was/is extremely whitewashed, especially in studios and in print. Teaching sometimes felt like going up for a modeling gig; it’s about how you can sell your personality and look along with the knowledge you’re bringing to the table for clients. It’s a complicated industry, especially as social media, fitness media, fitness fashion and advertising have combined in a juggernaut of superficial information vs. substance.
My NYC fitness hustle story probably sounds the same as anyone who has put in hours, time and sacrificed a lot to grow and do something they care about.
It takes work.
Nothing’s guaranteed.
There are roadblocks.
Liking to workout isn’t a good reason to become a trainer or a fitness personality.
Putting some real life behind anything that is important will always bring a reward, even if it isn’t the one you were originally chasing.
