Trainer Spotlight: Samara Michaelson
What inspired you to become a personal trainer?
My appreciation and love for movement, and my experiences enduring various mental and physical injury and obstacles, motivated me to become a personal trainer. I want others to feel empowered in their bodies, to move with confidence, and create a space that’s just for them. I want to shift our idea of what it means to exercise and bring it back to movement.
Growing up, I played a lot of different sports. I found joy in being active and competitive. After being recruited as a D1 runner, I dedicated myself to running and all the training that goes along with it, which I continue to this day. I have intense desires to find my limits and reach my potential.
At the same time, I’ve dealt with chronic injury and mental obsessiveness. I feel sensitive to both poles of the spectrum: wanting to do your best, and not knowing what your best is or how to achieve it. With the right framework, I think exercise can be both fun and challenging. And it is often exactly when one is doing both that the best results are achieved.
What makes you unique as a trainer?
I think that my personal experiences with mental health challenges and physical injury make me uniquely sensitive to my clients and their needs. I understand exercise is just as much mental as it is physical. I understand and deeply empathize with those who struggle to determine their limits and need guidance.
Part of this guidance depends on a precision of- and sensitivity to- language use. My background in the study of literature and writing builds my attunement to language and the kind of precision that is endowed in the implicit.
What is your sport or training modality of choice?
My primary sport of choice is running. But, along with training as a runner comes a variety of other training modalities. For me, these include lifting and yoga, and when injured, biking and swimming. Beyond that, I love to include more playful forms of movement to let my body loose.
How do the benefits of physical training in the gym translate into everyday life?
Foremost, I think the benefit of physical training comes in the way of grounding. Sure, you can feel a sense of purpose and achievement through progress. But more importantly, physical training allows you to feel oriented in the day, at home, and attuned to your body and its needs.
I feel more alive if I've exercised. I’m able to feel more free because I’ve created a space that is for me and up to me. The day does not go on hour by hour without my having squeezed the juice out of it.
I believe that knowing your body is a really powerful tool. Being able to speak your body’s language allows it to be less corrupted by outside, unqualified voices.
It’s not for the purpose of looking a certain way the world tells you to look, or treading on the elliptical for an hour because you feel guilty. It’s about taking control of your body for its own sake, and feeling the joy of doing that.
What is your favorite part of being a personal trainer?
My favorite part of being a personal trainer is seeing someone improve. I feel like their goals are my goals in this deep way and I get so excited opening up this whole new world with them. The ability to simultaneously move and problem-solve always feels refreshing to me.
When a client is able to move freely and without pain, their personality and ability to express themselves changes. That seems to me like one of the most immediate and important ways to help someone.
If you could tell some brand new to fitness ONE thing, what would it be?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned (and continue to learn) is about listening to your body and training smart. Fitness is about working with your body, not against it. All of the metrics we can apply to training are only approximations of what’s going on inside your body. Knowing why you are doing something gives you the motivation and determination that a hundred crunches can never give. Oftentimes, this means patience. You need to trust your body and use exercise not as punishment, but to build a sustainable, flexible foundation that allows you to progress, adapt, and feel good.
Samara is a NASM-Certified personal trainer with CPR/AED certifications. We’re thrilled to have her on our team!
