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

Lena, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so one thing we think people don’t talk about nearly enough is investments – either time or money. What’s one of the best or worst investments you’ve made and what did you learned from the experience?

I believe that one of the best investments you can make as a business owner is time. As a personal trainer/coach my job is to pour into people and encourage others to be the best version of themselves daily through developing an active lifestyle. In the fitness industry, investing into people, takes tons of time, patience, consistency, effort, communication, accountability and leadership in order to build strong relationships with your community. Having strong relationships and building rapport with your clientele promotes longevity within business.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Lena Thomas and I am the owner of S W E A T by LMT LLC (Athletic Wear Brand) and Co-Owner of Impact Performance Training (Gym).

I got into the fitness industry in 2015, shortly after I graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. I received an athletic scholarship to play basketball at the DII level and graduated with a BS in Kinesiology (study of human movement) with a concentration in sport and exercise science. The experiences I had within sports and the classroom have brought me to where I am today. I am grateful to be in a space where I can influence others in a positive way and ultimately encourage my community to develop a healthier way of living by staying active.

The first job I had when I graduated from college was at LA fitness. I was in personal training sales for about 6 months so I learned about the business of personal training from the beginning of my journey. That was probably one of the best moves I could have made before I began establishing myself as a coach. While I was getting into the industry, I was also coaching high school basketball and track at the same time I began creating a brand for my style of training.

I created and began promoting my first brand, Lean Machine Training, in 2015. At the time I felt it was extremely important to separate myself from others in my industry. I’ve always been a fan of creating your own personal identity no matter what industry/organization you are a part of so building a brand made perfect sense to me. However, as I continued to build and create, I felt it was even more important to build and create my brand to the point where I could have a broader reach and connect to people that I didn’t necessarily know personally. On June 1, 2016, “S W E A T” was born.

When I started creating my brand, one of the first things I did was buy some t-shirts and get them printed with my logo on it to give to my personal training clients. Apparel was my way of showing appreciation to my clients for investing in me as their coach. I already had an eye for sportswear by being an athlete, so naturally I had an idea of what looked and felt good while working out. I decided to capitalize on that and expand the brand in ways that I never imagined.

Fast forward to April 2021, myself and a couple of business partners opened our training facility, Impact Performance Training. Our objective has always been to motivate and inspire our community to be the best version of themselves. With our coaching, we are able to understand what our clients goals are, analyze/study their body mechanics, and progressively push boundaries through different training styles to achieve a desired result. Being a gym owner has its own set of obstacles, but knowing that our clients believe in our coaching and love the results they see from trusting the process, is extremely rewarding.

Now, I currently design and print my own athletic wear, print apparel for other companies/businesses across the country, and train clients out of a gym that I helped create as well. Just being able to say that is a blessing in itself and I am proud of the progress that has been made over these past 7+ years.

Nothing that I have accomplished in this lifetime has been easy for me to achieve. Having a pure heart, sound mind, positive spirit and energy in combination with passion, an intense work ethic, mental toughness, and a burning desire for success is what has brought me to this point in my career. I have made plenty of mistakes and still learning as I grow, but I am enjoying the ride and looking forward to what the future holds!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Most of my life journey has been centered around overcoming obstacles, pushing through adversity, and defying the odds. That’s what resilience is. It’s less about the challenge that is presented in front of you. It’s more about how you shine and prosper anyway no matter the situation. Resilience has always been one of my strongest traits.

I grew up in West Bloomfield, MI which is a suburb of Detroit. There is this misconception that living in a suburban environment automatically guarantees success which is very untrue. For me, growing up as a young black girl in one of the wealthiest communities in the state, was more challenging than most would think. Excellence isn’t an option or a choice. It is a lifestyle that comes with a responsibility to exceed all standards and expectations. Excellence requires discipline, focus, effort and consistency at the highest level at all times.

Although, most of my peers, classmates and teammates had their college plans set since junior year of high school, I was still struggling to figure out what my plan was going to be at the end of my senior year. My goal was not just to go to college and graduate. I wanted to receive an athletic scholarship so I could continue my basketball career and graduate with a bachelor’s degree without having to worry about the financial hardship that often comes with going to college. The financial struggle is what they don’t tell you about higher education and we all know student loan debt is very real! Knowing how this might have a negative impact on my parents and family financially, I wanted to avoid that as much as possible. I was naturally gifted athletically, so the goal of receiving an athletic scholarship was clear and something I knew I wanted to achieve as early as the 7th grade. I’ve always been ambitious and had high expectations for myself during my childhood years. Breaking barriers and taking on what would seem like an impossible task to the majority of the world, was second nature to me.

Two of the main challenges I faced while trying to achieve this goal were:

1. Exposure
2. Height

When it comes to college basketball, especially NCAA basketball, those two components are key in order to be scouted and recruited by coaches with a credible program for student-athletes. Considering I went to a small high school that wasn’t well known for any of their athletic programs, let alone girls basketball, I had to make sure I was put in a position to gain some decent exposure and let my skills on the court shine. As a 5’2” point guard, exposure was extremely important for me specifically based on my height alone. Most girls I played with/against were significantly taller than me. Because of these two variables, I was at somebody’s AAU tournament, summer camp, open gym or practice almost every weekend from 4th grade all the way until I was a senior in high school. I’ve never been afraid to roll my sleeves up and do the work in order to achieve a goal.

Every time I stepped on a basketball court, my objective wasn’t just to win, but to dominate each game I played. I had to outwork my opponent with every opportunity I was given because I had a huge point to prove. Not to anyone else, but myself. The grind always feels different when you have a constant chip on your shoulder.

Throughout my high school career I received multiple awards for my talents on and off the court, broken school records, been acknowledged in the newspaper on an almost weekly basis (back then, post-game newspaper interviews were a big deal), and more. Despite, performing at maximum capacity almost every game and excelling in the classroom, I was still overlooked by many schools due to my height. As it was getting closer to graduation, the time was coming where I had to make a decision on what my plan was going to be. I didn’t have a single scholarship offer from a school despite my achievements as a student-athlete. I almost gave up on my hoop dreams, but I was so determined to achieve my goal that I couldn’t allow myself to give up. I wouldn’t let myself fail after all of the work I put in to become an outstanding athlete.

Wayne State University, was interested in me since my freshman year in high school. They sent me a few letters, but I had never talked to the coach, let alone receive a scholarship offer from them. I played in one of the last AAU tournaments of my high school career and I was informed that the head coach from Wayne State was there to see me play. Confident and unbothered by the pressure, I played well and the coach came to talk to me and my parents afterwards about coming to campus for a college visit. After my official campus visit, I signed my NLI (national letter of intent) and received an athletic scholarship to play point guard for the women’s basketball team. After putting in years of blood, sweat and tears into my game, I was signed to a team within a week. God works in mysterious ways and always shows up on time. Mission accomplished.

I am sharing this piece of my life story because it is essential to who I am as a person. Everything that I have learned through playing sports and being an athlete is applied into everything I do within business to this day. There are so many invaluable experiences I have had along my journey where resilience was a key component to my overall success. This is one of my examples.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

When I first started my clothing line back in 2016, I had a local printing company do the majority of my manufacturing. I realized how much of a financial investment it was to have my designs printed so about a year and some change later I taught myself how to print my own apparel. I bought a few pieces of equipment to put in my home office and developed a print & press strategy that I still use to this very day.

My design process has served as not only a resource to cut costs and establish a higher profit margin on my products. It has also serviced many other brands/companies on local and national levels for their apparel needs.

I have so much to learn when it comes to manufacturing, but I am blessed to be able to use the skill set I currently have in a positive way to help my community. It takes time and attention to detail to be able to design a quality product. Learning how to be patient with myself as a designer has helped me to be more confident in the clothing/fashion industry.

There are other types of printing I would like to add such as: screen printing, sublimation and embroidery just to name a few. I have no doubt that other printing types will be added when the time is right!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sweatwithlmt.square.site/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sweatwithlmt?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@sweattv6088