Hey Fusers!

Zak is a Bay Area Native who grew up right here in Kensington and attended Hilltop Elementary School.  The way that he became a Fitness Professional all started with his own fitness journey. He played sports growing up and due to numerous injuries from basketball, his path to recovery was through strength training.  Although he came from a sports background, Zak has been able to adapt his training style after consistently learning.  

A few words from Zak:

“Trial and error has helped me gain experience and become more specific with my plan. I’ve learned so much and have become much better at addressing goals and not using a cookie cutter approach.  The more I get to work with clients that have a wide range of fitness levels, the more it humbles me, because I came from a sports background.”

Through experience, he knows how daunting this journey can be for anyone just starting out; which is why he tries his best to help people with realistic expectations on how to achieve results.  He wants his clients to look at the big picture, instead of through just one workout. Zak believes that getting out of an outcome oriented mindset, creates more of a process mindset. Once a foundation is established, then you are able to build consistently from there.  This is what translates his passion for helping others.

Zak was introduced to us by way of a mutual dear friend, Julie Moore. Julie, who sadly passed away a year ago, was the owner of Circle Salon on Colusa Ave, and had cut Zak and his family’s hair since he was a little boy. Julie was one of the most warm, inviting and generous people we’ve ever met, and she welcomed us to the Colusa Circle right away when we first opened in Kensington. She took classes at Fuse and also did some personal training, often leaving beautiful, home-grown bouquets of flowers for us. 

As Zak was beginning his career as a personal trainer, Julie introduced Zak and Kristin, asking her to take him under her wing. And that was the beginning of a wonderful relationship with Zak. What Kristin immediately saw in Zak was a real, genuine desire to learn and ask questions, no ego involved. And what she appreciated was how he paid keen attention and always had great questions that were smart and thoughtful. Zak has truly developed into a great trainer over the last few years, creating his own unique style, and has a great rapport with his clients. 

Zak’s quote on what inspires him: 

“How life transforming fitness can be for people.  There's the working out itself, and it extrapolates out in every aspect of your life.  Your relationships improve with other people. It makes me want to impact more lives and just meet more people and continue to make the world a better place.”  

Fun Facts about Zak

Guilty Pleasures:

Pastries in the morning with coffee. Baked goods.  Pepperoni Pizza on fridays. 

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Hang out with my fiance. Netflix and chill with her every night.  Cooking. Fun activities with her such as dancing, cooking, and going to museums.  I love making music. I’m on Spotify. Open mic on Monday nights at Kava Kava bar at 9pm, and Tuesday nights at Starry Plough Pub. Workout, and play basketball and go to the movies. 

Favorite movie(s):  

Ferris Bueller’s day off. Zoolander.  

What is your training style?

Strength Training with a barbell, focusing on compound movements and finishing with a circuit to get the heart rate up.  I also have a class called “Six Pack with Zak”.

What does a typical training week look like for you?

Total body strength training on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 

Wednesday and Saturday are my cardio days where I either run or play basketball. 

If you could be an animal which one would it be and why?

A zebra. My name is Zak and a zebra starts with a Z, and it’s always been my favorite animal growing up.  The zebra is the dopest looking animal; it looks very musical, sort of like a piano. I enjoy looking at zebras because of their pattern. 

Hey Fusers!

The Client of the Month for March is Daly Richards.  She has taken it upon herself to learn more about fitness by becoming a NASM Certified Personal Trainer!  She first joined The Fuse when she took a TRX class with Pascha, and besides her becoming certified her greatest accomplishment is becoming a Mom.  Great job in setting a prime example for her daughter to live by.  

Here are some random facts about her:

• Favorite exercise:

  • Bear hold/crawl, band walks, plank variations, hip thrust, glute bridge, and anything that involves being upside down.

• Favorite food:  

  • Pizza, but, unfortunately i can't eat it as I avoid gluten and dairy.  I also love olives and am happy that I can eat them.

• What others may not know:  

  • I briefly had dreams of joining the circus and took flying trapeze lessons for several years.

• Favorite sport: 

  • Watching my daughter play Albany HS Varsity basketball: 

• Favorite thing about the fuse:  

  • Instructors are awesome and the members are all super friendly and welcoming to newcomers!

• Next goal: 

  • I am interested in taking courses in corrective exercise and possibly nutrition.

Hey Fusers!  

This year we wanted to shake things ups a bit and let you get to know all our trainers a bit more! We thought it would be fun to highlight a different trainer each month so you can learn more about who they are, where they originally come from, how they got into fitness, and what inspires/motivates them.

Up first!! The strong, beautiful, loyal and loving Gail Hotten. This amazing woman has been with Fuse the longest, and we are so honored and grateful for all that she contributes to Fuse.  

Gail steps up to help out and goes above and beyond for us--always making herself available for subbing at the last minute, helping us build and open the Albany studio (we could NOT have done it without her and her husband Scott--we are forever grateful to them both), taking towels home to wash and always offering to fold them when we haven’t been able to get to it. She’s known for creating some really tough, challenging workouts, despite her sweet, calm and innocent-seeming nature ;)

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Gail moved to the Bay Area when she was just 2 years old.  Like many things in her life, she sort of just fell into becoming a fitness professional--we like to think of it as serendipitous :)

She started taking classes at Berkeley Iron Works, an indoor climbing gym, and was a regular in their spin class program.  One day the instructor asked if she wanted to teach 1 class each week. Despite already knowing everyone in the class from having taken it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it because she was fearful of having to speak in front of a group of people.  She decided to take on the dual challenge--doing something she hadn’t done before, as well as face her fears of being in front of the class teaching.

“I couldn’t get over myself, but that led to my own personal interest in fitness.  I started to workout more often, and eventually learned more about boot camp style classes.”

Believe it or not, one of her first bootcamp classes that she took was Kristin’s Monkey Ninja BootCamp at Iron Works. See what we mean by serendipitous :)

“I got my by butt kicked and realized that I have no business in this class, and I never went back.” Ok, maybe it wasn’t serendipitous at first….;)

She never went back until Kristin actually needed a sub for one of her classes, which Gail agreed to teach.  Eventually one thing led to another and she was asked to take over an early morning bootcamp class at Iron Works.  However, she didn’t want to do so until she was certified. Thus, she made the decision to become a Certified Personal Trainer, took over the early morning class, and with the help of Kristin and Pascha, she developed her own training style. 

Here’s the good stuff….what inspires Gail to be in this industry?

“I’m a people person and if I didn’t end up doing this, I would have gotten into some type of social work or therapist work.  I love helping people find the right resources to help them get through the challenges in their lives. I learned to be resourceful at a young age.  I remember wanting a pair of Guess jeans, that was the style back then, and my dad had a great idea for me to work to get them. I would do introductory piano lessons for students that were on the waitlist to get into my mom’s piano class, and I enjoyed helping them prepare for it.  I love working with people and seeing them make strides to get closer to their goals is rewarding for me.”

Fun Facts

Guilty Pleasures:

Corn Chips and Guacamole.

Margaritas

Peanut butter and dark chocolate.  

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

“Mountain biking, hiking, trail running, cooking, and having people over for some dinner and wine.  Carnitas for bigger parties with a good green sauce, then you can break out your margaritas. Apple cider braised pork shoulder recipe that I love to do, depends on the people coming over.”

If you could be an animal what would it by and why?

A cat.  No particular reason, it was the first animal to come to mind.

Hi Fusers! My business partner and great friend Pascha Brown wrote a valuable piece on how to stay on track and maintain your fitness goals. Her post really reminded me of this week's motivational quote from Oprah, "We can't become what we need to be by remaining who we are." We can't reach and maintain our goals by slipping back into bad habits. We have to stay committed, focused and consistent, but not beat ourselves up for slipping every now and then. Here's Pascha's article...

After setting your goals, working towards and achieving some visible results, how do you maintain them?

We often sabotage ourselves when we are nearly there. Why? Because we have started to look and feel fitter than we were before, leading to increased self-confidence. At this point it's easy to go right back into our old habits, such as eating too much unhealthy food and starting to skip workouts.

When this occurs it is very difficult to get back on track because we compound the breakdown by getting upset with ourselves. A great strategy for combatting a set back and a potential psychological tailspin, is to realize and plan for the likelihood of ups and downs. Acknowledge now what the potential setback triggers are for you and then plan what you will do in case you do lapse. In other words, what will you do if you have a bad day to let it go and move forward to create a good day?

Here is a checklist to get you through your maintenance phase.

• Consistently work on your eating habits though they will never be perfect. If you fall off the horse, just get right back on.
• Vary your workouts so your body does not reach a plateau. This is why as instructors we are always changing up our workouts and why we offer a variety of classes.
• Don't feel that you have to achieve a high level of fitness in order to achieve results.
• After you have completed one major goal, quickly move onto the next goal. Fitness doesn't stop after weight loss.
• You do not need to work out several hours a day and live on salad and protein shakes. Avoid over-training and getting burned out.
• Have an accountability partner or take group classes to stay consistent. We offer many awesome, diverse and well programmed classes here at The Fuse Fitness. Check out our class schedule here.
•  You have to do what is necessary to achieve results, and that takes commitment and consistency.

Share with us, what do you do to stay on track?

Yours in Health,

Kristin and Pascha at The Fuse Fitness