Personal trainers open Fit 4 U! center to local residents
Susie Trisel could barely walk a laundry basket up her stairs without getting winded two years ago.
The Mount Pleasant resident has since run three 5-kilometer races and one Bump ‘N’ Run, a 3.5-mile combination of running, swimming and miscellaneous abdominal workouts.
Trisel said she started training with Blaine Gebhardt and Kristin LaBelle, owners of Fit 4 U!, 1620 S. Mission St., a little more than two years ago. Since then, she has lost shed almost 28 inches from her waistline and said she feels more physically fit than ever.
“I’m 45 now, and I never thought in my 20’s it would ever be feasible to do these things,” she said.
No memberships here
Gebhardt has worked as a personal trainer since 2003 and in Mount Pleasant since 2006. LaBelle has three years of experience as a trainer.
The trainers celebrated the grand opening of their new fitness center, Fit 4 U!, Saturday. Although the building officially opened last weekend, Gebhardt and LaBelle already have generated strong interest.
“We have a good base,” Gebhardt said, “but we do have room for growth.”
She said Fit 4 U! does not offer memberships but, instead, classes and personal training.
Trisel said she tried working out at different fitness centers before she went to Gebhardt and LaBelle.
“I had no sense of direction,” she said. “I wasn’t disciplined enough.”
Trisel works out with Gebhardt one-on-one twice a week for core strengthening and attends the trainers’ cardio classes twice a week.
“If you work out for a while, it can get kind of boring,” she said. “One thing about working out with Blaine and Kristen is that they always keep it exciting.”
Personal training
Katy Cox, 39, of Mount Pleasant has worked out with Gebhardt for four years.
“Every class is different,” she said. “When you show up, you have no idea what to expect.”
When she started, Gebhardt only did personal training, but Cox said she talked her into starting classes.
Cox said she left for a month for a weight-loss boot camp and, when she came back, she wanted to maintain a routine similar to her experience there. Classes, she said, were a way for her to do that. She talked Gebhardt into starting them.
“I wanted something that could be in my life every day and I could fit into my routine,” she said.
Cox now attends personal training and classes five days a week. Her two sisters, Leanne Worgess, 40, and Laura Zurawski, 41, and her mother, Shirley Jenkins, 64, all work out with her.
