With the help of her Equinox COACH, this former Broadway dancer leaned into w
Forged at Equinox is a series highlighting an Equinox member’s foray into a new workout regimen, with help from an expert coach. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Lainee Sargent was not even four years old when she first stepped foot into a dance class. Thanks to her ballerina mother, Lainee spent her youth studying ballet, tap, and jazz when most other kids her age were riding bikes, skiing, and participating in PE class — activities tied with a risk of injury, and could threaten her dance career, she recalls.
In her twenties, Lainee left her hometown of Sacramento to pursue a career on Broadway in New York City. Like many dancers, she developed upper-body instability and constant pain, particularly in her legs and hips. By 2021, she had already had surgery performed on both hips. “I could get [my job] done, but I knew in the back of my head that my body wasn't quite as strong as it probably could be and should be,” Lainee says.
After an eight-year run, Lainee relocated to Miami with her husband and continued seeking out dance as exercise. But in February 2022, she met Caroline Beebe, a fellow dancer and COACH X at Equinox Coral Gables.
Unlike some of the trainers Lainee had worked with in the past — coaches who prescribed dance-centric workouts that would help her maintain her physique — Caroline encouraged her to lift weights. “[In dance,] I think there's this stigma around heavy weight training that you’ll bulk up, you won't have as much range of motion as when you're tinier,” Lainee says. “And so [Caroline] was the first one who I really let take control.”
Training with Caroline for the last two years has “really changed my body,” Lainee adds. Her squats have never been deeper. She can hip thrust a load amounting to her husband’s body weight. And she’s up to 30-pound weights on the dumbbell bench press, due to the emphasis they’ve placed on heavy lifting over the last six months.
Even after a hiatus, she can keep up with pro dance classes without feeling winded. “I would dance six days a week in New York, multiple classes a day, and would come out hurting and cardiovascularly exhausted,” Lainee says. “Now, I’m waltzing into an advanced jazz class in New York that you take in character heels — which is not for the faint of heart — and I’m like, ‘I feel great!’ It's truly a testament to weight training.”
Here, Lainee — who’s now a Barre and Bala Bangle Barre Burn instructor for Equinox Coral Gables and South Beach — and Caroline share the thought process behind the workout programming, the challenges they’ve tackled together, and the goal of elevating your experience with life.
How did you work together to establish your goals and game plan?
Caroline: “We always start with an assessment. Since I'm a Tier X Coach, we went through a pretty extensive assessment process of not only baseline movement patterns but also metabolically what her body is doing — what's happening inside. We talked through and collaborated on what the results were and where the results needed to go from there. It's evolved a lot over the last couple of years; at first, it was very much aesthetic [because] Lainee also models. Once we got it to where it's in a good spot — there's always tweaks here and there to do — Lainee came to me and she's like, ‘Okay, I'm ready. I'm teaching barre again, let's lift heavy,’ and I'm like, ‘Game on.’ It's very much a collaborative effort back and forth between the two of us throughout the entire process. I always tell people, I'm just the guide. You're the driver of your own story.”
Lainee: “I think what I appreciate too is that Caroline is very honest and blunt. There's no sugarcoating to make a sale. [With her,] there are no shortcuts. She's like, ‘You have pain here because you're weak here and the way to strengthen it is doing a heavy sumo deadlift.’”
Caroline: “A huge thing for me is honesty with my clients. Some people really appreciate it and, for some people, it turns them off and that's okay. I’d rather be upfront and honest about how hard this process is because it's not fun to be in shape all the time, especially when you're an elite athlete like Lainee and you want to take your fitness and your health to that next level. There are sacrifices that need to be made, but then there's also a huge reward at the end — or at least there should be, otherwise, we're probably working toward the wrong goal.”
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How did you accommodate for Lainee’s previous injuries?
Caroline: “It’s always a very individualized process, but [Lainee’s previous hip surgeries] didn't really affect anything. The way I view things is we shouldn't really shy away from [certain] patterns, especially with someone who has a lot of mobility, who has a lot of range of motion [like Lainee]. I need to strengthen her in all of those regions. So whether she's had surgery doesn't really matter because we need to be strong.
“Now, when there's pain and when there are issues that start to come up, then it's time to tweak and adjust. The interesting thing about pain, though, is a lot of times it's [a matter] of how our body perceives a threat versus actual injury pain. We've had a lot of those conversations of Lainee saying, ‘This doesn’t feel good,’ and I say, ‘Tell me more.’ Instead of, ‘Okay, we're done. We’re not doing this anymore,’ it's, ‘I need more information so we can decide if this movement is worth it or not.’
Lainee: “I was very hesitant, especially with more of the heavy weight training exercises, like, ‘I don't like to go this low with weight on my back. This feels scary.’ Or, ‘This is uncomfortable.’ I've had two surgeries and various other injuries — as any dancer has — and [have gone] through a physical therapy program, which is great to get you moving but it's not quite as in-depth as this. [Caroline] was a great guide and [will say], ‘You're fine. You're not going to hurt yourself — trust me.’ And I really had to let go. Anyone who’s a dancer knows we are very much type-A people, so I just had to trust her.”
Caroline: “Lainee knows her body so well…I trust her to know when it's worth it and when it's not. And so we have those conversations, a lot of: ‘Okay, is this pain or is this just uncomfortable? Is this injury or are you sore?’”
How has your everyday life improved since training with Caroline?
Lainee: “My husband and I have a boat, and getting on and off…at low tide, it’s a big depth — it’s like a single-leg pistol squat to get down and on it. Moving to Miami and doing so many more outdoor things has been really fun. I started running. My knees don't hurt, my hips don't hurt, and my ankles don't hurt. My cardiovascular system has been a lot better. With dancing, our numbers are at max two and a half, maybe three minutes… and to be able to do steady-state cardio for 30, 45 minutes is really cool. My husband and I also started surfing over the summer, and [training] has helped even just getting in a low squat position there.
“I just got home from a ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is the hardest mountain to ski in the lower 48 and harder than Banff, Canada. I could have never gotten down safely and with no pain — I mean seriously, no pain — if it weren't for her (and my husband’s trainer as well). We wouldn't have been able to walk perfectly fine the next day or get down the mountain again; we did four days of really hard skiing and it was great.
“Now, I feel like I have a body that, in addition to dance, can do all this other really fun stuff. I'm not 32 going, ‘Oh, my God, everything hurts.’ I’m like, ‘I'm 32 and everything's the best it's ever been.’”
What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced together?
Lainee: “The hardest is probably the sumo deadlift because you have to pull it all the way from the ground, and I've seen people tear their knees or hurt their backs in various gym environments, and so I was really terrified to do that. And you have to get low [with a sumo deadlift]. It's your whole body — your back, your legs, your core — [working]. It's just a different mindset with lifting. As a dancer, we lift our body weight. And I felt my back a lot in the beginning and it scared me. I would look at her and I would just want to be like, ‘No way.’ And she's like, ‘You have muscles back there. They're working — that's what you're feeling.’ And now I can do it. When we put more weight on, I feel them but I know it's not like I'm in danger.
Caroline: “[To ease Lainee’s fears], I just go through the logic, like, ‘These are the muscles you're feeling. If you were to be feeling something bad, this is what it would feel like,’ and just walking her through that to make her understand that it's okay to feel muscles working. I think a huge misconception in general is that anytime people feel their lower back working, they're like, ‘Oh, my God, I feel like that.’ And I'm like, ‘Yes, we have a lot of muscles back there. We need to use them. Now, if that's the only thing you're feeling, let's talk about it.’ So I just approach it through logic and hope that logic outweighs the emotional response at some point. And it always does at some point.
Lainee: “Coming from a dance background — both of us — we're used to staring at our bodies in a mirror and watching others. You're so in tune with that, and so I won't move unless I feel her locked on me. She's not over there looking around — she's watching. She'll say, ‘Your form is fine. You're just feeling this for the first time, so it's new.’… She'll give me a few notes here and there, but I also like that she doesn't overcorrect me. If you give somebody too many things, your brain can't process all of that information. So she's given me two or three things, sometimes even just one, and [reminds me] it's okay to not be perfect.”
Caroline: “I always tell people that I will not let you hurt yourself. I will not let you have bad form. If you have bad form. I will tell you to stop. I'm not just going to let you do something that's dangerous. There's trust that comes in with that. Being able to trust your trainer is a big deal, and I don't take that lightly with any of my clients.”
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I'm not 32 going, ‘Oh, my God, everything hurts.’ I’m like, ‘I'm 32 and everything's the best it's ever been.'
Do you have any new goals you’re working toward?
Lainee: “I think I'm not as stressed about [my goals] because I think I have such great guidance and I'm kind of like, ‘Alright, I just want to be really strong and maintain a no-pain lifestyle.’ It's less, ‘I need to get to this by this date,’ which is how I've lived my life for 20 years...I don't focus on how much I weigh.”
Caroline: “I think this is my favorite point to get to with clients because the goal is to elevate you in life versus hit a certain body fat percentage or lift a certain amount of weight. It's to be strong, be resilient, be able to do whatever you want whenever you want, and feel comfortable within your skin. Ultimately, that's my goal for everyone.
“I have to give Lainee some props because it's taken a long time to get there for her. For a dancer to say, ‘I don't really care how much I weigh’ — that's not taken lightly in my head at all because that is drilled into us from the first dance class we take. To just have that mindset of, ‘That doesn't really matter because I feel good, I’m performing how I want to perform’ — that's that's huge.”
Lainee: “It's fun to think, ‘My muscles can do this’ versus, ‘They look like this.’ I've really tried to release that [hyperfocus on looks] and I feel like, in releasing that, my body has responded in a really cool way. I’m not a guy with my monocle, staring at my stats and how things have changed…So if anyone is nervous about starting, especially for the females lifting heavier weights, I would just say I hear you. I understand that, but I think you will surprise yourself.”
Photo Credit: Katelyn Kopenhaver