A Dallas-based small business owner has found body confidence and friendship in her years of training with an Equinox COACH and Pilates Instructor.
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.
A Los Angeles native, Annie Rapaport grew up with non-stop movement; she practiced karate, dance, tennis, and Tae Bo. When she was in sixth grade, her dad bought a reformer, hired a private Pilates instructor, and had Annie and her sister flowing through classic moves in their own home. “I remember I hated it,” she jokes. “I was like, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’”
Flash forward to age 17, Annie suffered a dance-related injury that led doctors to suggest a back brace — a treatment option her family quickly shut down. Instead, they turned to Pilates. This time around, she was grateful for the fitness modality. “Pilates really healed me,” Annie adds.
But her deep fitness roots were no match for a chaotic year of moving to Dallas and launching her own business at just 26 years old. Once settled, Annie says she realized she needed to join a gym and have dedicated trainers guiding her — so why not go with the best? That’s when she signed up for a membership at Equinox Highland Park and began her now-five-year journey of one-on-one training with COACH X Samantha Ward and Pilates Manager Meg Stutts.
The trio wasted no time digging into Annie’s goals and assessment results. Annie had set her sights on improving her body composition — losing fat, plus gaining and maintaining muscle, says Samantha. “She was starting her business, and she was working with people one-on-one, as well,” Samantha recalls. “So it was important to her that, [when] having conversations, she felt confident about who she was in those interactions. At the time, that was the priority for her in order to be successful.”
In their personal training work, Annie and Samantha homed in on those body comp goals, as well as movements that kept the newfound Texan, who was “very flexible and mobile,” strong and stable, says the Coach. They focused on strengthening the posterior chain (specifically the upper back, glutes, and hamstrings) to improve posture and back health, playing with multidirectional movement, and feeling more confident lifting heavy weights.
“As a dancer and female myself, I understand women’s mindsets initially when we start talking about resistance training and they fear that lifting heavy will make them look bulky,” says Samantha. “The reality is that resistance training is one of the best things women can do for their body composition and their health. It has numerous benefits from a cellular health level internally to how you physically look and feel on the outside. That process takes trust, and so it took time for us to slowly incorporate more weight.”
Thanks to her previous experience and drive to perform, Annie progressed quickly in her Pilates practice, says Meg. She was performing hundreds, long stretch, teasers, and short spine massage, plus lunges and splits on the reformer and pull-ups on the cadillac and chair, in no time.
Of course, there was still work to be done. “It was clear right from the beginning that she was very mobile and that we'd need to balance this with stability, so we often worked hip stability with things like leg pumping on the chair and even re-learning how to control the pelvis during feet in straps,” says Meg. “We also had to focus on her rib-belly-hip (‘powerhouse’) connection in order to improve her teaser and make many of the advanced exercises more controlled. So we spent time incorporating mat fundamentals to reinforce things her body may have forgotten.”
With so much change in her life — a new city, a new business, a new movement routine — Annie was overwhelmed, to say the least. But her Equinox team was there to support her. “I see [Samantha and Meg] as, like, my pseudo-therapists,” she says. “When I go and meet with them, they both help me talk through any issues that I'm having, talk about stress levels. When you're going through so much and you have so much stress, it manifests in your body. Like I said, I've always had lower-back pain, so that's a big thing that we try to manage all together. But really, [training] was a stable thing in my life…That routine just really helped me feel stable and consistent when everything else just felt very out of control.”
Today, Annie’s Pilates and personal training regimen doesn’t look too different than when she started — but there are some tweaks. With Annie pregnant, Samantha is re-envisioning their go-to exercises; the single-arm farmer’s carry has become the “car seat carry,” and the Turkish get-up is now preparing her to effectively get in and out of bed with a bump and, later, a baby in her arms. Meg, on the other hand, is plotting moves to strengthen and give Annie relief when hip and belly discomfort arise. “Pilates can help keep her comfortable but moving and can serve as active recovery during the days when she needs strength and mobility but isn't feeling her best,” Meg explains.
Here, the trio opens up about their progress and challenges in the Club, their relationship, and what training looks like with a baby on the horizon.
How have your goals shifted from Day 1?
Annie: “I'd say I’m in a very different place today than I was back then. When I first started, my body image and body weight were a big goal of mine; looking a certain way, maintaining a certain weight. I was really focused on that. I think growing up in Los Angeles, people put a big emphasis on what you look like, your diet, weight, staying active, and that's kind of just been ingrained in me my whole life. So I think I've had to unlearn all of those things.
“My goal used to be being a certain weight and looking a certain way, but over the last couple years, it's transformed into: I just want to feel good. I want to feel strong, and I want to feel healthy. I don't really care what the scale says anymore. And honestly, I’m really proud of that because it's taken a lot to get there.”
Samantha: “It did take a while to get there. I remember many of our conversations sitting in the office, doing an InBody. It first started with trying to reshape her mindset around weight. As females, we get so focused on the number — the pounds. And so it was trying to get her to shift her mindset into understanding that that number doesn't really matter. It's more the composition of your muscle to your fat. You could weigh the exact same and completely change your composition and feel completely different.
“We really tried to focus our energy in that direction, because what she was telling us was what was most important. I didn't want to disregard that as one of her goals, if that's what was important to her. But I also wanted to try to reshape her mind around it so that she could put more focus and energy into all the things that she was doing really, really well. Because, ultimately, the weight can change by the minute every single day, and so I didn't want that one thing to dictate everything else that she was doing.”
My goal used to be being a certain weight and looking a certain way, but over the last couple years, it's transformed into: I just want to feel good.
What were some non-scale victories you, as trainers, looked at for motivation and encouragement?
Samantha: “We really put a lot of emphasis on what we were doing in the gym, challenging her in different movement patterns that were maybe different than what she was used to doing, like with ViPRs and kettlebells. She had such a long history of being active in a lot of different ways, her body moves well, and it picks up movement patterns really, really well, too, so we could do some more complex things. We would do microflows or even just movements that would be really challenging for balance, stability, and also strength. She could focus that energy toward those movements, feeling accomplished in that way, and ultimately going heavier on some of those movements and challenging the complexity while also making some shifts in body composition, too. Those two things helped shift her mind away from being so focused on the number on the scale.”
Meg: “After working with Sam and being sore, or Sam telling me [Annie’s] working on balance, a lot of times we're working to make sure her low back is still feeling good, so that when she's in session with Sam, she can maximize that time. Sam does that in recovery and in her warm-ups, too, but I got to expand on that in Pilates and help with the core strength portions of it to keep her back strong. We did a lot of stretching, a lot of mobility to make sure that things are loose, the hamstrings are loose, and so that she's able to get the most out of the rest of her sessions.”
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What improvements have you seen from your training and Pilates sessions?
Annie: “Physically, I’m just feeling so much stronger and so much more confident in my body. Like I said, I've always struggled with body image, so I think they just really helped me feel, like, it's okay to just accept my body for what it is right now and where it is. So many times I come in and I'm complaining about, like, ‘Oh, I have this [issue]. I have this.’ They pull me back to normal, and they're like, ‘That’s normal. That’s skin. It’s okay.’
“When I moved here, I didn't know anybody, so they've also just helped me establish pieces of my life here. We've all established a friendship, too. It's been a really amazing journey with them, not just in the gym, but also outside of the gym.”
Samantha: “When we first met Annie, she was starting a business, meeting her now-husband. We’ve been to all of each other’s weddings; all three of us have gotten married in the last five years. And now, a pregnancy for Annie. I think we really embody the, ‘It's not fitness. It's life.’ quote that Equinox originally started with.”
Meg: “We’ve loved watching Annie and her life. We probably spend more time with Annie than some of our friends [laughs].”
What challenges have you faced in the Club, and how has your Equinox crew helped you overcome them?
Annie: “The biggest challenge has been getting enough sleep, waking up early, and being here. Sam and I changed our schedule from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., so that's helped me a lot. Just getting here at 6 a.m. was probably the biggest challenge, just because I'm so busy and overwhelmed, stressed with work. I'd be working late, and then I have to wake up early, and it was just this poor cycle.”
Samantha: “One of the biggest challenges that we've talked about is when you grow up dancing and doing activities like gymnastics that cause you to be very flexible or even hypermobile, that leads to a lot of aches and pains as you get older. This is where Meg comes in a lot with what she does in the Pilates studio: building stability through her core and through her hips so that that hypermobility or flexibility doesn't continue to cause her problems down the road.”
Meg: “The stretching feels so great to her, but because she's so flexible, it's not what we should be doing all of the time. As trainers, it's definitely usually the opposite of that, so it's a different kind of challenge to have to, like, pull somebody back that can do everything flexible.”
Samantha: “Even figuring out stuff she does on her own. When she’s coming in for group fitness classes or doing Precision Run classes, we have to really think about and strategize, like, ‘Okay, if you're in this class don’t put the treadmill incline up to 15 percent.’ Or in Pilates or if you're going to yoga, ‘I know you want to sit in the stretch for extra time but limit yourself on that so we don't undo anything that we've worked on.’”
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How has pregnancy switched up your training?
Annie: “[As of June 21], I'm almost 12 weeks pregnant, so things have shifted a lot. I’m experiencing a lot of different aches and pains in my body, like back aches and my hips [hurt]. Everything's just exacerbated right now. So we're just focusing on [relieving that].”
Meg: “As her body changes, we're going to have to talk about hip stability and making sure she's aware of her core as it changes. These goals will definitely change to be perinatal. Sam developed the pre- and postnatal programs for all of Equinox, so Annie's in really good hands. And then Pilates is great for the entire length of pregnancy. I've been pregnant once and I did Pilates the whole time. I've taught a lot of it, and it feels good. So we're excited for Annie to experience this stage of her life and this stage of her fitness.”
Samantha: “It is sometimes still an area that causes fear for people or uncertainty when it comes to exercise during pregnancy. I'm so thankful that more and more research continues to be done to prove that it is not only safe to exercise, it is also tied to a healthier mom and baby during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
“Pregnancy causes a lot of weight gain in the anterior part of the body; all of the work we have done posteriorly is going to pay off now, but we have to continue to build the strength there. The biggest change we will see is the adjustment in reps and weight. Birth and motherhood are endurance sports. It is incredible how women just adapt to doing everything they used to do — and more, often one-handed and with a five- to 30-pound baby/child in the arm or on their hip. I want Annie to be able to thrive during this. Women will find a way and use every ounce of energy or any muscles they can recruit to care for their baby, but our training now and postpartum is going to prepare her to be able to do this all with great form and strength.”
How would you sum up your experience working with an Equinox Coach and Pilates Instructor?
Annie: “For me, it's been so worth it and so rewarding. You reap what you sow. As much energy and effort as you put into it, you get out of it. And I think I've seen all of those benefits, not just in working out but in my daily life. It’s a constant in my life that I need to function at my best.”
Photos By Robert Underwood IV