Episode 85: Have Fun With Your Fitness – Transcript

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Heather Perren, senior master trainer for Lagree Fitness, to discuss how to make fitness a sustainable and energizing part of daily life. Heather shares how even busy professionals can prioritize wellness using fun, accessible workouts, no gym membership required. From holding a one-minute plank to discovering online fitness communities, Heather proves that movement can fit any schedule. As a mom of triplets and former teacher, she inspires listeners to reclaim their health, reduce stress, and boost productivity. If you’re ready to feel stronger, clearer, and more empowered, this episode is your fitness wake-up call.

Transcript

Jennifer: Hey, hey everybody, welcome to today’s show and I’m going to just a little sneak peek. I’m just going to tell all you guys today, I really hope today’s show motivates a whole bunch of people to like get their asses moving and get themselves into shape and so if you’re one of those people that’s just like, ah, I know I need to like get more fit and I want to get more fit, but I just don’t know how I’m hoping today’s conversation is going to help you do that. So, I’m really excited to announce or introduce my guest, Heather Perrin. She is a former elementary school teacher who founded Legree Fitness after having triplets, triplets, you guys in 2010. I have three kids too, but I had them one at a time, Heather. Now you managed three at once. It just blows my mind. So welcome to the show today.

Heather: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Jennifer: Absolutely So, I would love for you to just take a couple of minutes and just share with everybody like a little bit about your journey and you know, what you went through that brought you here to today’s show.

Heather: Yeah, So I used to be an elementary school teacher, I did that for a few years and then I ended up having triplets in 2010, stopped teaching at that time, decided to be a full-time mom and then in 2011, I was looking to get back in shape and, you know, kind of carve out some me time. And I found a new fitness studio that had opened near my house and it was a type of fitness called Legree Fitness and went in for my first workout and I never took another kind of class again.

I fell in love with the method and I said, wow, this is going to be for me. So, once I started working out there, I started a few days a week and next thing I knew, I just loved it so much. It was my me time, you know, mom life, you know, can be stressful. So, I started doing that, you know, five, six days a week. And by the time the kids were going into kindergarten, the owner at the studio said, I think you should get certified and come be an instructor here.

I’m like, I don’t think so. That is not my thing. I’m a mom. I’m an elementary school teacher. I don’t teach fitness and next thing I knew, somehow, I was convinced to do it and take that leap of faith and I got certified in 2015. Best decision I ever made. I had a blast at the certification. I got to learn so much and I realized at that point that I loved the method so much that I was already creating routines in my head without even realizing it. I was already at that point where, okay, this is something I can definitely see myself doing. So, I became a part-time fitness instructor. Fast forward to March, 2020, world shuts down and I realized, well, now I’m going to be at home with my kids. I’m doing homeschooling with the kids, right? They’re in fourth grade at the time.

I miss teaching, you know, all of the clients in the studio and at the same time, Legree came out with their at home reformer called, or machine called the Micro. So, at that point I was able to start teaching virtually.

Started with a small group of people because there were only a hundred of those machines made at the time. I got one of the last ones. So, I was happy because I got my workout in and then sure enough, people found me on Instagram because I was posting all the moves and little by little, everyone started, you know, following along and I realized, okay, maybe I’m onto something here. So, I teamed up with another instructor at the time in the spring of 2020 and we created a platform called Legree at home and at the time there were no other workouts out there for this method on the machine because it was so brand new at the time and about this time is when the creator Sebastian Legree and I kind of started working together to really kind of grow, you know, the classes and everything else for the microformer because it was so new at the time. Of course, back then everything was still pretty much shut down.

You had to be really careful with, you know, all of, you know, promotional things, but the micro grew really well and Legree at home grew really well at the time too.

So that was great and you know, something that I never thought in a million years would happen, just did and it found is as people started going back to the studio, we thought, well, maybe, you know, the micro is just going to go away and people are just going to go back to studios, but that’s not what happened. People learn that they can work out at home and just work out at home, or you can do both. and sometimes working out at home and in the studio is a great compliment to each other.

I know personally, for me as a mom, life gets crazy and I don’t always have time to get into the studio for a workout. So, by being at home, Hey I can do 30 minutes before the kids get up for school and get that quick workout in. So, the micro became a great tool, um, you know, for fitness, for at home, for busy working moms, for anybody really. And so that’s how I kind of got started.

Jennifer: Oh, I love it. I love it. I just chain of events that just leads us from one place to another, to another and how we end up where we end up and, um, so wonderful, but, and talk to me a little bit, because I know there’s going to be people who are listening to this episode and they are probably in a place where they are trying to, we’ll call it reclaim their physical fitness.

One of the things that entrepreneurs that we’d love to do is just like work night and day and put everything into our businesses and then we sacrifice our health and we, you know, we stop exercising, not everybody, but you know, who you are, who’s listening to this show today, where you just like you. And I know I was that person for many, many years where I just sort of put my own health on the back burner because I was too busy in my business and did it for many, many years and so if somebody is listening here today, they need to reclaim their fitness. They’re not even sure where to start. Like you are clearly the fitness pro, like where, where, where should they start? Like, where do you even begin? If you’re just like on the couch, you’re on the couch, you know, you need to do it.

Heather: Yeah.

Jennifer: How do you even get started?

Heather: Start small, right? The easiest thing to do is make those baby steps, right? The first step is getting off the couch and just, you know, stand up, do a couple of squats while you’re standing, watching TV instead of sitting on the couch, add a couple of pushups in. One thing I love to recommend to clients that are just kind of getting going and starting to change something in their lives to get back into the fitness game is if you can hold a plank for a minute a day, even in the morning and at night, that’s a great way to kind of incorporate fitness into your day at the beginning of the end.

One little minute of your day is nothing, right? So, if you can start, it’s just a little stepping stone to get back into it and then, you know, start small. You can do small routines at home. If you have a friend that is open to going into a gym or a small boutique fitness studio with you, find something you enjoy. I know not everyone enjoys working out. I get it. But if you can find a friend to go with you, usually that makes it more fun, more enjoyable because, you know, everything is more fun with friends and find something that works for you. If you hate it and you dread it, then don’t do that.

Find something else. Even if you’re just walking around your neighborhood, that’s a start.  If you like bike riding and you don’t like spin classes, so go on a bike ride around your neighborhood, right? There’s things you can do that you can think outside the box, right? Even if it’s only 20 minutes a day, that is what you need and if you can’t get a full workout in, break it down into smaller pieces throughout the day too. I think people think that, okay, if I need to work out, it has to be a full hour a day. And that’s not the case. You can take, you know, a 20-minute walk here. You can do, you know, a small 10-minute core workout from a YouTube class if you don’t have the money to spend on fitness, right? So, don’t let money deter you anyways from thinking you can’t be fit, right? Because there’s so many free things on the internet as well and I think sometimes that’s a hurdle that some people face.

They don’t think they can do fitness because it’s expensive. But what I think the COVID situation has taught everybody is that there’s so many free offerings for fitness out there, right? So, something to think about when you’re getting back into it.

Jennifer: Yeah. You said so many good things in there. One of the things was making it fun. If you’re going to dread whatever physical movement is, like you’re just never going to stick with it. But when it’s fun, it makes all the difference. And guys, you have to get out there and you have to try some different things. I right now, it’s so funny. I hired a personal trainer to help me with strength training because I like to do Spartan races and you pretty much have to be able to do everything you can think of to do a Spartan race.

You’ve got endurance, you’ve got strength, you’ve got all these. And guys, I’m not good at them. Okay. So, if you’re hearing this and you’re just like, Oh, but she’s good at them. No, I’m not. I suck at them. Okay. I’m like slow and I’m last and I can’t do half the obstacles, but I am out there and that’s the difference because most people are not, but I am. So, you just get your butt out there and you just do what you can do. But I hired a trainer to help me with my strength because I just will procrastinate it.

I love cardio. I love to go hiking all day long, but to sit there and like lift weights or work on strength, I’m just like, I just don’t like it. So hired a personal trainer. Turns out he was a professionally trained boxer and so he trains some boxers, not kickboxing, like actual boxing, like put the gloves on and box and so we’ve been boxing and again, I’m terrible at it, but holy crap, it’s so much fun and it is, I had no clue. You know, me and my husband, we watch Rocky and you see Rocky and he’s going to town.

You do not realize how much of a workout that really is when I just have to do my punches and he just, he’ll have me punch for a minute and I’m like drenched in sweat and I can feel my abs and like my whole body. It’s crazy what a whole-body workout boxing is you guys and never would I have ever thought I would even be saying, Oh yeah, I’m learning boxing not to do it professionally.

Although I did come home and be like my husband, I’m like, don’t give me a lip buddy. Cause I’ll punch you out. I’m learning how, but I look forward to it.

I’m like, Oh, I hope we get to do, you know, this with the punches and I’m learning all my numbers and I, like I said, I’m terrible at it, you guys, but it’s so much fun. I really, really look forward to it and so, I think what you said, right? Find something that you’re actually really going to like makes a big difference.

Heather: Exactly. Cause I think if you’re waking up and you’re going to some form of a fitness class or going to the gym and you don’t like it, yeah, it’s going to feel like a chore and you don’t want to do it. So, you got to find the thing that’s going to make it fun. Like I found Liguri fitness and I fell in love with it.

The workouts are never the same, you show up every day. The music’s going, your heart rate goes up. I get the cardio in; I get all the things I personally look for in a workout and I never get bored because the workout is never the same. So, for me, that workout works fantastic. Would it work for everybody? I don’t know, but there’s other workouts, right? Like you fell in love with that boxing component, right? People love spinning. There’s so many varieties of workouts out there right now. Try something new, right? If you’re not finding something you love, then try something else. Something’s bound to stick. Right?

Jennifer: Absolutely, and you guys, you know, one of the other issues that I have, have overcome is my job requires me to be in a chair most of the day. And sometimes I’m in the chair talking to people for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. I mean, some of my longer days I’m in this chair a lot and I found that at the end of the day, I was just too tired. I was just like, get out of my way. I need to go relax.

I need to decompress and I did not want to work out and so what I did was I grab, I have two 15-pound weights in my office and in between calls, I just would grab my little weights and I do squats and lifts and then I try to get like five in and I added it up and you guys would not believe this. Like even in a long 10-hour day, if I just do like five in between every call, like every hour, that’s like 50 squats a day.

Heather: Yeah.

Jennifer: And I’m like, that’s a workout.

Heather: Yeah,

Jennifer: that’s a workout. And then the beautiful thing is at the end of the day, I don’t have to work out because I did it. So, it’s like, I did it. I worked and I did it and it was just like, Hey on my off days, that’s a beautiful thing to get moving, get some strength in and so guys, you can get really creative with how to fit the physical fitness in and I love what Heather is saying. Like you can work out from home, you can go to a studio. Um, and I, I imagine like for you, for getting started and coming back after triplets, like that had to have wreaked havoc on your body to have triplets as a female. I’m like, how did you do that?

Heather: I mean, not easy. I was on, I’m petite. I’m only five three. I’ve got a small frame and I was on bedrest almost my whole pregnancy. So, I was fit going into it, but I lost all my muscle tone because I was literally on bedrest for almost 14 weeks, I think, which meant not moving at all. So, for me, I mean, obviously hard to stay on the couch. I know some people think that sounds amazing, but let me tell you, it’s not. Um, but slowly and gradually, you know, I built up that strength again and I think because prior to the pregnancy, I was in good shape.

It helped get you back and you know, if anyone on this is listening, that is, you know, thinking about getting pregnant or is currently pregnant, you know, if you’re pregnant or thinking about it, it is good to be in shape prior to and during because it will help you after you actually rebound quicker, you bounce back faster, you have, you know, better, you know, luck with your delivery, you know, as far as having an easier so-called delivery. Um, and you know, there’s a lot that I think helped me in that situation with, um, having been in shape before, but even if you’re not, you know, working out afterward, you’ll get back into shape.

I’m honestly, now the kids are going to be 13 this summer and I’m in the best shape of my life now. So even after, you know, I’ll be 40 this year and working out, staying fit at this point in my life, best shape I’ve been even prior to having kids, even when I was in my teens and my twenties, I’m definitely in the best shape of my life. So just because you’re getting older, it doesn’t mean you can’t stay fit. That’s for sure.

Jennifer: Yeah. I love that so much and so, if you are, you know, a business owner, this is one of the things we talk about a lot on the show is that correlation between physical fitness and having a business. Um, there was a great book and I’m, uh, her name was Elaine and I can’t remember her last name. Sorry, Elaine. Um, but she wrote a book called tiny business and it was about entrepreneurs who had grown seven figure businesses and usually, they were one person businesses.

They would use contractors, non-employees, but one of the things that all of these really successful people in had in common was that 88% of them exercised. And I can say that from my own journey, when I started to do the Spartan races, um, my first year, this was a couple of years ago, I had set out to do three in a year and I ended up doing 12 and that’s actually what, what caused us to launch our unbreakable retreats where we, we pair a Spartan race with business coaching, which is super fun. Um, but when I did all those extra races and was so much more physically active, my business revenues almost tripled that year and it wasn’t like I was trying to grow the business.

Of course, I was, but that kind of growth was not a coincidence that I was out on this course and doing a physically hard thing and I brought that into the business and things in the business that had been hard before. It didn’t seem as hard when I was conquering these, these physical challenges. And so, I would love to hear what your thoughts are as far as, you know, physical fitness and being a business owner, you know, what do you see with, with the entrepreneurs you work with who, you know, are more physically fit?

Heather: Uh, I agree with that completely. I, it’s an interesting situation on my end, on that standpoint, because we’re in the fitness industry. So, my business, uh, I have a co-founder that is my business partner, uh, for lingering at home. Um, and we work out with our clients. So, part of it is we’re already are in the fitness industry. We are getting our exercise in, but I also, you know, have other business owner friends that are in this world of entrepreneurs as well and they’re all fit people and it’s interesting.

You said that I’ve never really thought about that correlation, but now that you’re saying that I can definitely see that. Um, I agree. I think that when you are fit and you’re able to kind of let that, you know, whatever tension you’re carrying, whatever stresses that come with your business life, which let’s face it, there’s a lot, right. You can get that all out when you exercise and that’s kind of, you know, exercise.

Yes. It’s a lot of physical and it’s great for your physical body health, but there’s a lot of the mental component that goes with it and I think when you’re allowing yourself to exercise, all the stress that comes with running a business can kind of fade away a little bit, not all of it, but at least it’s part of that mental component that can really help you when you’re stressed out running a business, you’ve got a lot on your mind.

Sometimes when you get into that mental mind body connection of the exercise, you’re able to really, you know, take things into that mindset where you can kind of, you know, organize your thoughts better and you’re able to, you know, for me at least I can kind of plan out my day. I can break down what I want to talk about with my team and different things. So, I think exercise can play a huge role in helping business owners.

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. It’s so interesting because this is one of the things, we’ve actually added to our business coaching services is we have a health coach on our staff because the business owners who are exercising and taking care of their health, they’ve got the energy, they’ve got the vitality to show up and do what needs to be done in their business so that the business coaching works.

The business owners who are, you know, sick all the time, don’t feel good, don’t have energy, you know, they tend to miss calls, they tend to give up, they tend to not show up, they tend to not necessarily have that mental toughness, that mental discipline, and they don’t get the results versus the ones that actually take care of their health and so this is why we’ve kind of we kind of pair our coaching around this and bring it into business coaching, which is, I think, a pretty unusual thing.

I’ve never worked with any other business coaches who also were like, Hey, we’re gonna get in shape. So we’re gonna just work on your business, we’re gonna work on you and but we just see so much better results from it went from business owners who are, you know, really taking care of their health and their energy and their vitality. They can just show up differently in their business.

Heather: Yeah, that’s a really interesting perspective and I’ve never thought about that. But I’d love to research that a little bit more) as well. I like that concept a lot.

Jennifer: Yeah. Heather, tell me a little bit about this workout, because I’m gonna tell you, I’ve never heard of it. And you talk about it, and you really piqued my curiosity. So, tell me a little bit about this workout. Because when you say it’s like never the same thing. Like, okay, so tell me a little bit about what that is.

Heather: Legree Fitness has actually been around for over 20 years. But because we’re not a franchise, most people don’t understand what Legree is. But if you’ve heard of the word mega former, those are the machines that you’ll see in studios around the world. So, we’re not just in the US, we’re found all over the world and so essentially, it’s a machine looks like a reformer. So, some people think it’s a Pilates workout, but it is definitely not Pilates whatsoever.

We’re a high intensity, low impact workout, that means your heart rate goes up, you’re going to get the cardio component to the workout. But because we’re on a spring-based resistance system, you’re going to keep your joints and your body safe. So, anyone can do this workout really. We use the core and every single move you do, whether it’s a core-based movement, or if you’re in your lower body moves, you’re also going to work your core and then we really try to focus on muscular strengthening and muscular endurance. I love the workout clearly so much.

I’m very passionate about it. Not only do I train virtually for it, I’ve trained in the studio for you know, forever on that as well. And I’m also now the senior master trainer for Lagree Fitness, where I go out and certify trainers around the world that are learning to get certified and help new studios get opened as well, but Lagree is a workout where people look at the machine, they think it might be an easy workout and they get on and they are shaking, they are sweating, and you better believe everyone is sore the next day. So, it’s one of those where it catches people by surprise the first time they work out because we train in a different way than most people expect. Most people are used to going really fast.

You do reps really fast at the gym, you spin really fast, right? Most workouts are fast, but everything we do in Lagree is really slow. So, every move we do, very slow tempo, and that throws people off and the slower you go, the harder the workout becomes and it’s kind of like a mind game and it’s amazing.

We have so many moves, over a thousand different types of exercises, plus all the variation. So, when I say you never get bored, you don’t because you just never know what the instructor is going to have you be doing in the class that day. So, I love it.

Jennifer: Very cool. But yeah, but it sounds like you can work out at a gym. So, you could go find a gym that carries this if you wanted to do this type of a workout, or it seems like you guys have options.

Heather: Yeah, we have over 500 Lagree studios around the world. There’s a studio locator on our main website and then we also have on-demand classes for the machines. So, in 2020, like I mentioned earlier, that Microformer came out, which was the first portable version of the machine and then late last year, they launched the Miniformer and the Miniformer Pro.

These are kind of in-between versions of the Micro and the Megaformers. Same thing, price-wise, they’re about in-between too. But they’re all great because they have different features of them. They offer a little different accessories on the different models as well. I’ll give you a little different fun things you can do on them. But whenever I use the word fun, all my clients roll their eyes, but I promise we have fun on the workouts.

Jennifer: Oh, that’s so super cool. And it sounds like if you don’t want a gym or you don’t have a gym near you, you can also do this work out from home. So, there’s no excuse if this is something that you want to try and want to do.

Heather: Exactly, and the beauty of doing it at home, like we talked about earlier, you don’t have to commit to the drive to the studio, 45, 50-minute class, and then drive back. Not everyone has that time to commit every single day. I’m a big fan of doing both. Some days you go into the studio, some days you work out at home. But there are, of course, days where you’re like, ah, I got to get the kids to school. I got to get to work. I’ve got to… Whatever’s going on in your life. Well, maybe you only have time for a 30-minute quick workout. Well, guess what? You put on a 30-minute class, you get a 30-minute workout in and don’t be fooled.

In the Lagree workout, a 30-minute workout can definitely kick your butt really intensely. So, 30 minutes, if you want to just do a quick 10-minute ab workout, you can do that on these machines. So, that’s the kind of beauty that comes with being able to do the Lagree workout at home with the virtual classes.

Jennifer: I love it. You can put a machine in your office. For those of us who seem to sometimes feel like we spend our lives in the office, we can put it in your office and get a workout in in between calls or make it work for you.

Don’t make excuses. Make it work for you, you guys.

Heather: I like that.

Jennifer: Very nice. Awesome. I really hope that we’ve motivated some folks today to take a step, you guys. Just take a little step. Just take a step that you need to take to reclaim your fitness. If you’re already doing some things, maybe you want to raise that bar just a little bit because it’s just really and truly so important. I don’t know who said it, but that quote about when you invest a dollar in your health versus $6 in being sick, it’s a much, much better investment to just invest in being healthy right from the get-go. And you’re going save a whole lot of money instead of being sick.

Heather: I like that quote. We got to use that more often.  It’s very true.

Jennifer: Absolutely. All right, Heather, any final words you want to leave with our audience today?

Heather: Just thank you so much for having me here. It was a pleasure being on and I hope that everyone leaves feeling motivated to want to get out there and go do some workouts and I hope everyone that hasn’t heard of Legree is now, I’ve piqued their interest and wants to find a workout near them or virtually.

Jennifer: Absolutely. Heather, can you just share where everybody should go to find more information about this?

Heather: Sure. So they can find my personal website, legreefitbyheather.com. They can find me on Instagram at legreefitbyheather. And the main website for Legree Fitness is legreefitness.com and I also have my business page, legreeingathome.com. So, lots of ways to find this out there.

Jennifer: Beautiful. And guys, we’ll put everything in the show notes like we always do. Heather, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Heather: Thank you, Jennifer, it was my pleasure.

Jennifer: Absolutely. All right, you guys, that’s it. Get out, quit listening or listen while you’re moving, but get out there and move your butts today and do something to reclaim your physical fitness.

All right, that’s it. Have a happy, productive day, everybody.

Connect with Heather: https://lagreefitbyheather.com

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