We were lucky to catch up with Jackie Gill recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jackie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I have been in the personal training industry for about 14 years now, and there have been multiple defining moments along the way, that have led me to where I am now. I, personally, feel like my most recent defining moment happened toward the beginning of Covid, around March 2020, and it happened right at the conjunction of a few major things happening in my life. First, I had just recently decided to go into business for myself in January 2020, and I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to pan out. Second, I was training to run a race in March, but experienced a hamstring injury that forced me to alter my training style. And lastly, Covid happened, which was probably a life altering moment in a lot of peoples’ lives! There is a quote by Benjamin Franklin that goes “Change is the only constant in life. One’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine their success in life.” As difficult as change is, I’ve learned that it often comes with new opportunities that can expand your mind and set you on a path even better than you had initially thought possible for your life. Fitness has been a huge part of my life since high school and I knew that even if I couldn’t run or train for awhile, I was always going to be connected to fitness. I have never considered myself a to be a very flexible person, and I thought my body was trying to tell me something when I injured my hamstring. This led me to do a deep dive into yoga, an area I had not ventured into up to this point in my training career. At first, it was extremely difficult for me. A lot of the poses seemed almost impossible. I was used to fitting high intensity workouts into short amounts of time since I have 2 busy kids that keep me on the go. Yoga forced me to slow down and feel my body and my breath in ways I had never done before. It helped me calm my mind and got me meditating consistently. This also allowed me to face some of my personal triggers in life, and experience more inner peace, even during a very tumultuous time for the world. I decided to work on my yoga certification, not necessarily to teach classes, but because I personally felt drawn to it after practicing the first year of Covid. This completely altered my training style and continues to do so. Before pursuing my yoga certification, I felt like one of my biggest roles as a trainer was a motivator, making people workout, even if it was hard or they didn’t want to. It’s not that this isn’t a part of what I do anymore, but I have shifted my focus much more into helping people understand their mind body connection. I’ve even convinced a handful of my clients to start meditating regularly. I place a huge emphasis on mobility now, and feeling the muscles in your body working together. You don’t want to crank out 15 push ups with bad form. It will lead to injury down the road. I’d rather have someone do 3 slow push ups, making sure they feel the right muscles engage. This is a difficult thing to do in our fast paced society, but I believe it’s so crucial for longevity.
Jackie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I got certified to be a personal trainer after teaching elementary education for a couple of years out of college. I thought it was going to be an interim job while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life! As I was working on my masters degree in public health, I got pregnant with our first daughter and training worked out really well as far as having a flexible schedule while raising young kids. The deeper I get into training, the more I learn and the more interesting the human mind and body become to me. Bodies like to be moving and it’s incredibly rewarding to teach people how to move their bodies the right way. I do a lot of functional exercises with clients, which are movements that they have to do throughout their day to day lives. I have a corrective exercise certification, which is all about getting people’s bodies back in balance. When I see someone who hasn’t worked out in a long time and has developed a lot of unhealthy movement patterns and chronic pain, the first step is to assess where the imbalance comes from. A lot of imbalances happen from sedentary lifestyles. Certain muscles get tight, others get weak, and a lot of muscle atrophy happens over time that can make it difficult to move properly. I love seeing people start to feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s not easy at first, and one of the areas I place a big emphasis on is self talk. When we tell ourselves stories, like “I’m lazy,” “I have no willpower,” or “genetics are against me,” our brains work pretty hard to prove our biases true. When we give ourselves a little grace and focus on what we can do in the present moment to help ourselves feel better, it’s so much easier and enjoyable to see progress. I think most of us have this story built up around fitness, like it’s a punishment for unhealthy food choices, or the only enjoyable part of the workout is when it’s done, and I challenge people to develop a more positive relationship with exercise so that it becomes a more enjoyable part of their lifestyles. I know I’m doing my job when people are out of town and come back and say they missed working out! Some people will even do a Zoom workout with me when they’re on vacation. We’re so much more likely to stick with something that we have a positive relationship with, verses something that feels like punishment. The other thing I love, is that I get people of all ages, from teens to 90 year olds and I’ve found you can progress at any age! In fact, working out safely as you age is one of the (if not the best) predictors of longevity!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The longer I train, the more I realize how ingrained in me it was (from growing up in the sports world) that more is better. I remember pushing myself to the point I could barely walk the next day and coaches pushing for one more lap when your legs already felt like they were going to give out. An effective fitness plan is an adaptable one, and one that respects, not punishes your body. My first few years of training, I felt like I had to be more of the pusher; the “come on, you can do one more rep” kind of a trainer. I now believe this leads to people pushing without listening to their bodies, which can lead to injuries and burnout. I’ve come to the conclusion that so many of us have a hard time slowing down, to really feel what’s going on in our bodies. Our bodies are incredibly intuitive and adaptable when we give them the chance. When we don’t listen to our bodies and choose an exercise program that doesn’t work on effective movement patterns and only pushes to the point of exhaustion, it can really stress your joints in unhealthy ways. So my go to strategy now, is to start slow and start by having clients move their bodies better in ways that don’t cause pain. Then, we add weights with these moves for some extra resistance. I have them push only to the point their body can safely complete the exercise and then stop. Then, we give their bodies the rest they need to recover before we do it again. It’s amazing how much more enjoyable AND effective exercise can be!
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
It’s incredibly important to be able to meet someone where they are at, and realize how interconnected the mind and body really are. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received, was to try and match the emotion someone comes into the workout with to the workout style. For example, if someone comes into a workout fired up because they are angry with a coworker, let them burn that energy through more explosive movements. If someone is feeling very scattered, try grounding them with some yoga or balance poses so they can connect with their body again. I used to have a perfectly prescribed plan written down before each session, but I came to the conclusion that you don’t know what someone needs until they walk in the room and you feel their energy level. The goal is people keep fitness as an important part of their lives forever, and that means every day is going to look different. Some days it is going to be more of a stretch/meditative day, other days we are going to push weights, and some days we are going to move quickly and keep the heart rate up. It keeps things more interesting for clients and it also meets them where they are at on any given day.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @joyful.fit
- Linkedin: Jackie Gill
- Youtube: Jaclyn Gill
Image Credits
Monica Melber took the main (1st) photo of me stretching a client