We recently connected with Amari Brown and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amari thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

What my parents did right was they never boxed me in. They didn’t try to define who I should be based on one version of success they let me explore, try things, fail, and evolve. Growing up, I went from rapping, to being a student-athlete in track and field at the University of Alabama, to modeling, and now building something of my own. Through all of it, the constant wasn’t the thing I was doing, it was the support behind it.

They always made me feel heard and capable, even when I didn’t have everything figured out. That shaped my mindset in a big way, because it taught me that my purpose doesn’t change just because the outlet does. I’m still the same creative, disciplined, expressive person the form just shifts.

That’s really where Beyond the Bars comes from.

Beyond the Bars was created to be an outlet for women to experience strength in a different way. A lot of fitness spaces focus heavily on aesthetics or how your body looks, but I wanted to build something that shifts that focus. Calisthenics became that bridge because it teaches bodyweight strength, control, and discipline without needing a gym membership or expensive equipment. It also creates space for women who may not feel aligned with traditional weight training, or who simply want a different approach to movement.

At the core, I’m bridging the gap between being strong and being feminine because I don’t believe those things cancel each other out. I’ve lived that contradiction people try to create. I’ve been an athlete with muscle, I’ve been in creative spaces, I’ve modeled, and I’ve always had to navigate how all of that exists in one identity. Beyond the Bars is me turning that into a system for other women so they don’t feel like they have to choose either or.

And honestly, my family is a big reason I think this way. They showed me consistency in support. They didn’t just celebrate results, they supported the process. So even now, whether I was running track, performing creatively, or building a brand, I never felt like I had to become someone else to be valid. That’s the same thing I want women to feel when they step into my space that they can show up as they are, build strength at their own pace, and still feel feminine, powerful, and seen

Amari , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Amari Brown, a performance coach, calisthenics athlete, and creative who builds my work at the intersection of strength, movement, and identity. I help people develop real bodyweight strength through calisthenics based training, while also rebuilding how they see themselves in the process, especially women who don’t feel fully seen in traditional fitness spaces.

My journey into this started long before I ever called it a business. I grew up as a creative and an athlete. I ran track and field at the University of Alabama, and before that I was also into music and expressing myself through rapping. Later, I stepped into modeling and creative direction. At every stage, I noticed a common thread. It was never just about the activity itself, it was about discipline, expression, and identity. The outlet changed, but the purpose stayed the same.

Beyond the Bars was created from that realization.

Beyond the Bars is a training space and brand focused on calisthenics and bodyweight strength. I provide coaching, training programs, and content that helps people build strength without relying on a gym membership or heavy equipment. But more importantly, I focus on making strength feel accessible, especially for women who may not resonate with traditional weight training environments or aesthetics driven fitness culture.

A big part of my work is solving a deeper problem I see in fitness, which is the pressure to fit into one standard of what strength or femininity is supposed to look like. I help bridge the gap between being strong and being feminine, showing that those two things can exist together without contradiction. Through calisthenics, I teach control, progression, and confidence using the body itself as resistance, while also helping clients shift their mindset around what their body is capable of.

What sets me apart is that I don’t just approach this from a training perspective, I approach it from lived experience. I’ve been an athlete, a creative, and a model, and I understand what it feels like to exist in different spaces that try to define you in separate ways. My coaching and my brand are rooted in unifying those experiences instead of separating them.

What I’m most proud of is building something that feels intentional and personal. Beyond the Bars isn’t just about physical transformation, it’s about giving people an outlet to feel strong in their own body without needing to change who they are to fit into a specific mold.

At the core, I want people to know that my work is about access, identity, and strength. Whether someone trains with me directly or engages with my content, the goal is the same. To help them understand that strength is not one size fits all, and neither is the way you build it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

If I could go back, I would still choose running track at the University of Alabama, but I would understand it differently.

Being a D1 athlete at Alabama is something I don’t take lightly. I ran there all four years and even had an extra year of eligibility, but I chose not to take it. I was in the transfer portal for a bit, considering continuing somewhere else, but life shifted me in a different direction after I experienced a concussion that forced me to step away from the sport.

That moment changed everything for me. It made me realize I was more than an athlete.

Growing up, I was always encouraged to be multifaceted. My family supported everything I was interested in, whether it was creativity, music, or sports. I was never boxed in at home. But when I got into collegiate athletics, I started to feel like my identity became very one dimensional, like I was only seen as an athlete and not the full person I knew myself to be.

Choosing not to take my extra year wasn’t about walking away from something I wasn’t grateful for. It was about recognizing that I was being called into something bigger for myself. At the time, a lot of people saw it as stepping away from the highest level I could reach, but I saw it as giving myself permission to expand.

That decision is what eventually led me into what I do now with Beyond the Bars, where I lead a women’s only calisthenics and movement based training space. It allowed me to take everything I learned as an athlete, discipline, structure, performance, and combine it with creativity and purpose in a way that felt aligned with who I really am.

Since then, I’ve been able to step into spaces I probably wouldn’t have entered if I stayed confined to only being an athlete. I’ve met and impacted so many women through coaching, movement, and community building in ways that feel much more aligned with my purpose.

Looking back, I wouldn’t change choosing track. I would just tell myself earlier that it was never the only thing I was meant to be.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

What I help build in my representation in my market is really about challenging expectations and expanding what people think is possible for women in strength spaces.

When I got on social media and started really paying attention to the fitness space, I noticed a lot of it was trend driven. Everybody was following what was popular, what looked a certain way, or what fit a certain aesthetic. I made a decision to be intentional about not being that. I wanted to show something different, even if it wasn’t what people were used to seeing.

For me, that started with simply stepping into calisthenics as a woman in a real way. Something as simple as doing pull ups became a statement, because a lot of people don’t expect women to be strong in that way or to train their bodies like that. So I leaned into it fully, not just as a skill, but as part of my identity and my brand.

Over time, it shaped how people see me because it added to the conversation of what women are capable of physically, while also still being feminine. I didn’t want those two things to be separated. I wanted to show that strength and femininity can exist at the same time without one taking away from the other.

Even down to my appearance, that became part of my representation. My hair, my build, my muscles, all of it tells a story. I grew up dealing with being judged and even bullied because of my hair, so I eventually made the decision to cut it and fully embrace myself as I am. That choice, combined with the way I train and carry myself, created a look and presence that people don’t usually expect from women in this space.

And even in modeling, I carry that same energy. I move with grace, but I’m still strong and athletic. I don’t separate those identities. I embody them all at once.

So what I really help build in my market is representation for women who don’t fit a single box. Women who are strong, feminine, athletic, creative, and don’t want to shrink themselves to be accepted in one category.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.amarithemuse.com
• Instagram: @byondthebarwomen

Image Credits

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