We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Corian Love. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Corian below.

Corian, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

The With LOVE Fitness brand strives to be different and to stand out from the norm that is within the fitness world’s society.

And I am able to do so, by teaching my clients coping mechanisms, along with nutritional information as well as providing an amazing HIIT program.

I instill into my clients that their mental health is just as important as their physical health.
And that they learn how to speak life into themselves, while also making sure they take time to journal and reflect. To help them face their darkness. To be able to conquer whatever thoughts hold them in place and keeps them stagnant.

Because if we are able to rewire their negative thoughts, and feelings that they have about themselves, things that they dreaded I.E. working out arent seen as a chore anymore. Instead, things that once were seen as tedious are now enjoyable.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Corian Love and I am the creator and C.E.O of With LOVE Fitness. I started my journey in 2019 after a horrible car accident left me bed ridden. I decided to make a change and take back my life and my power.

So I joined a black owned gym named Godbody. As a client there I fell in love with the pain of rebuilding my body and understanding the light and strength that was on the other side of that pain. To focus and push through when all I wanted to do was quit and give up. But I owed it to myself to become stronger, faster, and healthier.

After a year of being a client and helping motivate others that were in the same class as me. I informed the owner that I would like to train. That the feeling of just helping others when they want to quit was fulfilling something within me. He gave me my first opportunity as a trainer in his gym.

It was like a spark that ignited into a fire and I found my niche. Helping people dig deep within themselves to finish the circuit or a move when all they wanted in that moment was to quit. And I couldn’t allow them to be defeated. I couldn’t allow myself to let them fail themselves.

I started talking with clients outside of the gym, learning about their home life, stress, and triggers. And I noticed by helping them in those areas we were able to see the best results from their bodies in the gym. Thus With LOVE Fitness was born!!!

My last name is Love so it’s only right that everything that I do, I do with Love. My grandfather taught me to always treat people the way I want to be treated and that’s were my style comes from. I don’t want to treat my clients like they are just another body in the gym, or a membership fee. I wanted to go beyond that and to show them that I am more then their trainer. I’m their friend, therapist, and coach.

Due to my own injuries as stated from the car accident of 2019, I began doing yoga along with training at Godbody. And the results to my spine and mental health were amazing. So I made sure that when I started my brand that my clients also do yoga. So along with my HIIT program my clients also learn yoga and calisthenics. From headstands, to learning how to swing on the bars in the gym. Like I said before I love to stand out from the norm.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

After rebuilding my body from a horrible accident in 2019 and losing over 100lbs I was injured again. This time by a driver that drove their car into the Godbody Gym. And not only was I injured physically, but also mentally. Due to the sound and impact of the accident on the building I now had PTSD. And my safe place, my home away from home…became a place of trauma.

It was hard to work there, to train there. Just simply hearing people re-rack weights, or flipping the tire across the floor would cause me to have panic attacks. Those sounds, sounded just like when the car hit the building. And I would shut down, cry, and freeze in place at the loudest sound.

I wasn’t myself, I had never felt such fear and turmoil within myself. I had to find my bearings. I had to find a way out of the prison that my brain was constructing. So I started doing more yoga and learned calisthenics.

While at Godbody I was introduced to a gentleman that also had his own gym. So I started joining in on his evening classes that were at Controlled Movementz Calisthenics Gym. He allowed me to cry there, and to express my hurt and pain that came from working in my place of trauma and how it was taking a toll on my body and soul.

He began to teach me calisthenics even more. To learn how to push through the pain again while honoring the fact that I am also healing and to be gentle with myself.

The more time I spent at his gym rebuilding myself through body weight and calisthenics, gave me more time to understand my path and my passion. And that it was time to teach Fitness in a new way.

So I’m February of 2022, I resigned from GodBody and started my With LOVE Fitness brand at Controlled Movementz Calisthenics Gym. It was time for a fresh start in a fresh new environment.

My friend who owned the gym loved watching me train and my style. He believed that I had so much to offer to the city of Memphis and that he was ready to move on. Upon moving out of the city he gifted me with his gym, it was mine now. My very own gym. All because I would never say die. I never gave up on myself, even when I wanted to. Even when it felt like it was the easiest thing to do. And that’s what I teach my clients. To fight, to fight against every obstacles that comes their way. Even if that obstacles is themselves.

And because I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, even when it seemed impossible to reach. I went from a client, to a trainer, to a brand owner, to a business owner in a short amount of time. And this journey has by far been anything but short of amazing.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The first lesson I had to unlearn was that all workouts are created equal. When in fact they are not!! Men and women bodies react differently to the same workout and the same amount of cardio.

I had to unlearn that a circuit had to look a certain way in order to yield results. When in fact doing the same thing over and over stops getting results in time.

I had to learn to how to “shake the table” and to trust my process. Even though my way was different, it worked. The moment I started listening to clients and learning about their daily life and eating habits I started creating a new way of attacking their issues and it worked.

Women needed less cardio then men, and that certain moves that men could do for a smaller midsection weren’t the same moves as women needed to do. It became like a science project, with a control group and a hypothesis. And when I saw I was correct even when others doubted me, I knew it was time to do my own thing.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @with.love.fitness
• Facebook: WITH LOVE FITNESS

Image Credits
Taryn J Daily