Health First Trainer Kathleen Jaromin Helps Women Get Comfortable with the Weights

Weight-Resistance Training Powers Women

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Jenny Brown says she’s old enough to remember the Presidential Fitness Tests in school, the ones where, if you’re a girl, proctors count how many seconds you hang from a bar in a frozen pullup.

Today, she pays for the opportunity to do that.

“I’ve never been able to do a pullup. If I did, it would be like winning the lottery.”

And yet, that’s exactly the kind of goal her personal trainer wants her to set.

Brown is one of a small handful of women Health First Personal Trainer Kathleen Jaromin has recruited for a weightlifting class at Health First Pro Health & Fitness. (She also offers other classes and one-on-one sessions, as do other Health First personal trainers).

They meet at Health First’s Pro Health & Fitness, tucked into a corner of the first floor beside the basketball court. Their environment features barbells for deadlifts, squats and bench press; dumbbells and kettlebells for one-arm movements and swings, and a big crossbar with bands for pullups, assisted pullups and pullup negatives, among other equipment.

All moms, the students range in age from mid-30s to 60. One is less than two years removed from weight-loss surgery. Some have been with Jaromin a year or longer – they’re not exactly newbies.

What they are is eager to explore weight-resistance training. To see if they can lift alongside the most confident gym goers up on the second-floor racks and benches – what Shayna Gleckel calls “General Population.” And do it without embarrassing themselves, or worse, getting hurt.

Form Follows Instruction

Each class the women do sets of deadlifts, squats or bench presses, followed by “accessory” sets more likely to isolate a muscle group (and employ dumbbells). It’s Jaromin’s job to give them an itinerary, shout gentle encouragements, like “Get low,” and, “You didn’t sign up for a tea party,” and track and remind them of their progress.

A trim, middle-aged woman with elegantly muscled arms and shoulders, Jaromin looks and acts the part, but she says her style is to de-emphasize herself in any training she does. She has a story about a woman who had had a bad experience with another trainer at another gym after he showed her an unsafe lift and then challenged her to try it herself.

“You will be a better trainer if you don’t have to prove yourself to the client, and that takes knowledge and experience, and confidence yourself,” she says.
At the squats bar, she and the women talk foot spacing and how much to tuck the elbows or flare the knees. At one point, during a set, she barks, “You’re a bookshelf!” to explain how each part of the body stacks up.

Mother May I

Much of what Jaromin does is instructional – explaining an exercise, giving guidance as a trainee executes it. But that’s only part of it.
She’s a sergeant, commanding her troops to get a difficult task done. She’s an inventory specialist, counting up reps and sets and weight and comparing it to last week or last month. And she’s a fan, reminding the women how far they’ve come.

“As you continue training for months or years, you forget about the very first visit and what you did then. I don’t. I remember everyone’s milestones. I say, ‘Look at Day 1 – now look at what you’re doing.’ I say, ‘Look at what you accomplished for yourself.’”

Jenny Brown likes to point out that Jaromin has the qualities of a mom, someone who knows better than you, who is gently guiding you to grow. For these reasons, when Jaromin praises her, Brown is encouraged and wants to prove even more.

“God, yes, it’s nice to have a mom,” says Brown, a mom.

Another mom, Katrina Francis, is a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. She says when she does overnights, Jaromin will send her ideas for workouts in hotel fitness rooms.

“Like a mom, she packs your lunch.”

Overcoming Fear, Inviting Accountability

When she first began at Pro-Health & Fitness, Francis, a young mom, was drawn to KidFit, the nursery and activities corner for kids and babies that parents take advantage of while exercising. Francis would drop her kids off – but she wouldn’t exercise. She wanted to, but “I never made it upstairs, I was scared.” She grabbed a shower, sat and read.

Then her kids grew old enough for school, and that’s when she paid for one-on-one sessions with Jaromin. She was invited to this class to continue her journey with a group of women at a similar point in their development.

Having a trainer and being around a close group of fellow trainees does something very motivating for Francis. They make missing a workout sting her pride a little.

“It’s worth the fee” – $20 a class – “to have the accountability,” Francis says.

“Paying for the gym isn’t enough to motivate most people to come to the gym,” adds Brown. “But paying for a trainer and having a group of women expecting you, and at a certain time, that makes you stick with it.”

There’s Training Accountability, Too

“We all have a love-hate relationship with one or two exercises,” and for Francis, that’s pullup negatives where she leaps into the top of a pullup, then uses her strength to resist as gravity pulls her down.

“I’m so grateful Kathleen does push me to do things I don’t want to,” she says. “On my own, I wouldn’t, but with her, I do see progress, and that’s so encouraging.”

Setting Goals, Not Watches

Several of the women said they sometimes find it hard to believe they’re weightlifting, and lifting “heavy” – that is, heavy weights done just 3 to 6 times then put down.

“We were the Jane Fonda generation,” Gleckel says.

When she and many of the others were young, sports or aerobics were (somewhat) encouraged for women, but not weightlifting. Aerobic workouts tone and burn fat, they were told, and women should look lean but un-muscled.

“You don’t want to bulk up, and the myth was, lifting weights will do that,” she says.

The myth has changed. Now, women of all ages are more likely to get the message that muscle “burns” more calories than fat. Thus, while both aerobic and anaerobic activity – weight training is anaerobic – burn calories, the latter builds lean muscle tissue that continues burning calories long after the workout ends.

Today, few of the women say they include a timed aerobic or cardio workout into their weekly plans. They’re gunning for strength gains. Brown calls cardio a four-letter word.

“I know it’s six letters, but it should be a four-letter word.”

Training Smart

Several of the women say they could easily rally behind a male trainer, but they like that Jaromin is a woman, and a woman of a certain age. If they’re experiencing some changes in their bodies, Jaromin can tune into that and understand – and adjust their training.

Unlike jogging or even cross-country skiing, weightlifting is very analytical. Not only does one scrutinize form and contemplate output – strength – but they do a lot of counting and comparing, and a good workout itself is structured. Jaromin’s trainees say that, without her, their workouts would begin to fall apart.

“It’s hard, getting back to this after time off, because the workouts are challenging mentally,” Francis says. “There’s a million options. You’re asking, will I use my body weight or free weights or bands? Should I introduce a new exercise? How do I start my routine again?”

“So you get a lot of people who come to personal trainers saying, I only want to do this for three months, just to learn a routine. So they learn a routine, they quit the trainer, and after a month, they’re not going to the gym anymore.”

“God forbid something happened to Kathleen, I know I could go upstairs and do a full workout for a week,” says Brown. “After that, it would fall apart, because it would get boring. I would do the same thing over and over because that’s all I know. It gets stale, and then you stop.”

At the end of the workout, the women grab their training journals, consider their routines and jot down their repetitions and at what weight. That an hour of weights would end with such a schoolhouse activity as putting pencil to paper is just another thing that might have surprised these women a few years ago.

“Each of you came and conquered. You did more than you thought you could,” Jaromin shouts from the squats rack.

The attraction of weightlifting, Jaromin says, is the practice and demonstration of strength. The more you do the stronger you become, and n matter your body size or build, demonstrating strength is a confidence-builder.

“A good trainer helps a person become the best version of themselves. Strength, athleticism, confidence. That’s the value I’m offering.” n

To learn more about working out with a trainer or in a scheduled class, visit HF.org/pro-health, or call 321.434-9153.

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