After injury, a marathoner finds routine in the Club with the help of her Equinox Coach.
For much of her life, Maria Sotomayor Ruiz felt like she knew exactly what was needed to maintain her fitness. A four-time marathoner and lifelong tennis player, she was used to prepping her own exercise regimen and race-training plans. But after three kids and a ligament tear, she struggled to get back into a routine and make progress without feeling pain, she says.
All that changed when Maria’s husband started training with Akeem Granum, a COACH X at Equinox Summit in New Jersey. After seeing him improve his body composition and boost other aspects of his fitness — more than what he could achieve by himself — Maria decided to book her own sessions with the Coach.
Given her injury, Akeem took a slow and steady approach to their initial programming. “I knew she had these performance goals she wanted to accomplish, but I wanted to make sure we prioritized laying down some more fundamental exercises just to ensure that she's healthy,” he says. They focused on low-impact, bodyweight moves, like a full range-of-motion squat completed without knee pain, and improving mobility in the ankles.
Once Maria mastered the basics, they began to advance their training, enhancing her strength, improving her knee health, and fine-tuning her running performance, he says. “We've been able to progress, like, tenfold,” says Akeem. “It's been a real 180 since our initial meeting.”
Maria has not only seen changes in body composition, building muscle and losing fat, but she’s also been able to run without feeling aches or pains, she says. “In January, I did the Disney marathon, and that was my first marathon after kids and post-injury,” she says. “That was a huge achievement for me, because I could not do any single 10k or half-marathon without getting injured on the way.”
Today, the pair are training three days a week, perfecting moves like Bulgarian split squats, barbell back squats, and deadlifts and working the upper body. All the while, Maria keeps running. “I go for a long run every Sunday, and I haven't been injured for so long, which is absolutely fantastic,” she says. “My recovery is getting much better. This Sunday, I went for a two-hour run and I was in the gym in the afternoon. That’s something that I would not have been able to do a year ago.”
Here, Maria and Akeem open up about their experience training together — the highs, the lows, and the benefits — and what other members should know about working with an Equinox Coach.
How has your perspective on working with a Coach shifted since you first started?
Maria: “I went to Akeem thinking it was kind of a continuity of physical therapy, but I maybe was unaware of what I could reach. So my first six months with Akeem would be, ‘Okay, I need to strengthen my legs. I need to strengthen my core, and I need that in order to get back my shape, and then I'm gonna start exercising by myself.’
“And I think the most eye-opening for me to work with a personal trainer, especially Akeem, is that there's much more that I can achieve. It's been a 180-degree shift in the way I see exercise right now. I’m very prepared and very aware that I need to strengthen my muscles, especially now with age, and that is very fundamental for me going forward. So how do I train? How do I get stronger? How do I take care of my diet? And then this is going to be a base for me to keep running. As opposed to, ‘Let me just exercise a bit with a personal Coach, and then I'll be by myself.’ This is totally a different scope. I think I'm in my best shape and I cannot thank Akeem enough for showing me there's a limit that I can reach when I thought I couldn't do it.”
Akeem: “She made my job very easy. I like to tell my clients, ‘I'm just the GPS. They're in the driver's seat. We're going to go as far as they're willing to go, but I'll be with them each step of the way.’ From the beginning of this process, she's been able to commit completely to the process. And this is why we're able to be successful today. And this is why we call ourselves the A-Team — because we work hard inside and outside the gym and she always brings her A-plus effort.”
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
Maria: “In the beginning, the accomplishments were massive, because I had so much pain and I was unable to run, even a short run. And so my first half-marathon was a fantastic achievement because I could do without pain — that was something very, very impressive.
“Then we started to work on some goals that I didn't even understand at the beginning, like back squats. That’s something Akeem put in our regular goals. And I was like, ‘I'm never going to do that. It's impossible. I cannot even do a squat.’ But then little by little, we were able to make it, and now we're starting to put on a lot of weight. When we put it in the goals, I thought it was unachievable, and now we are doing it.”
Akeem: “We've been able to go from simple kettlebell exercises and bodyweight squats to more barbell exercises. So now she's already squatting her complete body weight, which was completely foreign to us; the bodyweight squat was pretty challenging. Today, we had our best deadlift as well.”
How has your in-Club training improved your everyday life?
Maria: “The farmer’s carry exercise — it's so fun because now I get groceries and bring them upstairs, so I can carry a massive amount of bags right now, from the car to upstairs. So every time I challenge myself with how much I'm gonna be able to carry from the car to upstairs. And it's very impressive that this gym exercise and the gym efforts can positively impact your life.”
Akeem: “When we originally started, we kept a focus on more functional training, and I love that that has been able to translate into her everyday life: picking up groceries, being able to do something she loves like running. I try to mirror that through exercises that are not only going to improve her posture but also improve her running and just be able to improve her everyday quality of life.
“She not only shows up for our session, but she shows up outside of our session. She is also able to do homework, to be able to continue to improve her core strength. Right now we've been able to fire on all cylinders, which makes my job easier. I give her the blueprint, and she just does it.”
What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?
Maria: “I think there have been plenty of challenges, but I can say Akeem is so patient and he's so nice. So he's a combination of someone who pushes me to do much more, but at the same time holds my hand when I'm just not there. Recently, I went back to work, and we had to change our sessions. So now we're still struggling with going at 6 a.m. — I loved going at 10 a.m. and having some more time. But this is now our challenge, getting back our training at a very early start of the day.
“And of course, every time that I got injured, Akeem had to change the plan and adapt to the situation. So for the last year, we've been making some ups and downs; I could go for a long run and maybe not have 100 percent feeling in my body, and then Akeem would have to adapt the session and be like, ‘Okay, let's work something else. Let's help you to recover. Let's keep moving forward.’”
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Akeem: “We've been able to have a lot of highs. Like any success, it's never super linear. We've been able to modify our program depending on how the body feels that day. I think sometimes as a Coach, it can be easier to say, ‘Well, here's my fool-proof plan that I'm very confident in.’ But sometimes you have to be willing to be able to go off the script a little bit. I think by being able to openly communicate with me how the body’s feeling on a given day and also being able to have the pool of wellness professionals in our circles…we've been able to make these small hiccups or just simply roadblocks not deter or slow down our progress.”
What goals are you currently working on, and what are you eyeing for the future?
Akeem: “Right now, we're just trying to get her strong. So beforehand, we were focusing more on hypertrophy — we were doing some more high-repetition exercises for her to be able to own the mechanics of these new exercises. And now we're trying to focus on just maximizing her strength in these new compound exercises. So now we are lifting heavier weights for fewer repetitions…We've also been focusing on adding some sprint intervals to make her faster; we haven't been able to really focus on speed so much, mainly due to her injury. But she's been able to run faster and lift heavier. [We also have] some aesthetic goals like keeping our body fat percentage down.”
Maria: “At the beginning, just focusing all our efforts on how to strengthen muscles to go back to exercise. Looking at my physical health and how to make my body stronger is going to help me function better and make me run better. Little by little, we started to work on the body aspect or the image aspect of it, and now we're working on the two sides. So how do we bring fat down? How do we get to the weight I want to be, bringing the percentage of fat lower? But at the same time, we accelerate on the functionality and how I can run faster. Now that the strength base is there, we're just accelerating and running faster and lifting heavier.”
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What do you wish other members knew about working with an Equinox Coach?
Maria: “I didn't know exactly what I could achieve with a personal trainer…[I’ve gotten] a result I didn't think I could achieve. So he has opened the door for me of what I can do and what I can achieve. I think a personal trainer can help you to achieve much more than what you think you can.”
Akeem: “I think for a lot of us as individuals, it's hard for us to see what our body's fully capable of doing. Especially if you haven’t been to the Club in a while, I think it's very easy to kind of accept, like, ‘Well, I'm a busy adult, and this is just what it is.’ A lot of our client base at Equinox is very, very busy adults. So being able to hire a personal trainer to be able to create more structure in your routine, inside and outside the gym, will be able to help maximize their experience in the gym and also maximize their fitness.
“I think also what's been sweet about this entire process, outside of being able to see Maria change, grow, and develop, the relationship — the bond — you’re able to create with people is amazing. I see Maria as not only my client but also family. You get invested in these relationships.
“I would definitely recommend anyone who's thinking about training, I would tell them to ask themselves, what do they have to lose?”
Photos by Jared Ryder