‘I want all my clients to set goals and crush them’
Maya Angelou said it best: “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”
With those words as motivation, Anita Gravesmartinez, CPT, SNS started on a journey — a new lifestyle.
“I’m no different from anyone else,” she explained. “I was in my 30s with two children — busy, working, exhausted, overweight and overwhelmed. That was when I decided to embark on my own vision of being stronger physically and mentally. It took years on my own, through trial and error, trying different diets and modes of exercise, and practically starving myself along the way. The weight came off but I didn’t feel strong, happy or satisfied.”
Something more was called for. To make it a sustainable, lasting lifestyle, Graves-martinez realized she needed to enjoy exercise and have a better relationship with food. She soaked up information on her own, but felt she wasn’t quite there yet.
“I decided to change gears,” she said. “I worked in advertising for 15 years and at 40, I decided to go back to school.”
After four years of online studies and hands-on training, Graves-martinez earned certifications in personal training, sport nutrition, athletic coaching and barre. She was recently certified to teach rebounding (mini trampoline) through Barreconcept.
“I learned so much. I wanted to share it with everyone. The puzzle pieces were coming together. I now realized that everyone is unique. For diet and exercise to be successful in one’s own life, it needs to become a lifestyle and personal. It needs to be approached with each individual’s needs,” she discovered.
This was important to her because she lives with a heart defect and intensive exercise can be “counter productive, and eating healthy and clean is paramount.”
Graves-martinez opened Barreista Studio in February 2018. The name is a combination of the barre discipline and her time working as a coffee barista while earning her degrees. Her focus is helping people find their strength as she did — physically and mentally — to empower from the inside out. Barre is her exercise of choice.
“It’s fun and it works — there is no plateau at the barre. It doesn’t get easier, you get stronger,” she said. “It’s the
perfect balance of a well-rounded workout program. Not only does it appeal to those who want to lose weight, it offers a high caloric burn.”
Barre features all aspects of exercise: cardio, strength, flexibility, power, agility and over all improved core balance. It gently works the entire body in less than an hour with results that everyone can see and feel. Barre fitness centers on creating grace and elegance by lengthening and aligning the body. Most barrebased classes use a combination of postures inspired by ballet and other disciplines like yoga and Pilates. The barre is used as a prop for balance while doing exercises that focus on isometric strength training combined with high reps of small range-of-motion movements. Light handheld weights are also sometimes incorporated to bring on the burn during reps, as well as mats for targeted core work.
“It compliments any body,” Graves-martinez added. Some of her current clients have MS, autoimmune disease, hormone imbalances and prior hip or knee replacement surgeries.
“They tried barre because they wanted to workout out, but not injure themselves,” Gravesmartinez explained. “I offer modifications for everyone so each person feels in control and empowered as they workout.”
As a sport nutritionist, Graves-martinez can help sort through the many diet myths floating around out there and encourages everyone to listen to their own body and get to the root of what it needs. She preaches, “real, clean eating every day.”
“I want all my clients to set goals and crush them,” she said. “What have I seen this last year? A beautiful clientele, dear friends that have taken health and fitness into their own hands, and having fun along the way. After a year, I’d say it’s a lifestyle.”
BARREISTA STUDIO 204 CAÑON EAST BYPASS, #4, TAOS (575) 779-3358 BARREISTA88@GMAIL.COM
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