Check Out Renae Parks’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Renae Parks.

Hi Renae, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
After quitting my full-time job, I needed a temporary one, so I asked the owner of our local gym if I could be a trainer. He hired me on the spot. After being a kickboxing instructor for about a year, I decided I could make personal training a career path, so I got certified and began seeking clients. Since high school, I wanted a job changing people’s lives and was attracted to the medical field, but none of the jobs seemed to fit. Whenever I tried a new specialty, the door closed. Personal training is a trap door, and I don’t want to escape any time soon. I like the one-on-one environment, the teaching aspect, and being someone’s accountability partner—something you can’t do as a nurse or chiropractor.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest bump in the road was deciding to leave the kickboxing gym. It was hard to say goodbye to the place that helped me get my start and for me to accept that I needed another challenge to grow. I might still be there if I hadn’t gotten my next opportunity.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in three things: making people feel comfortable, teaching individuals, and increasing a person’s mental health. If I can’t make you laugh, then no one can. My goal, at least during the first month of our relationship, is to make you feel comfortable with me and the gym. Working out is very intimate, and you have to be vulnerable. If I can ease some of that, I am doing my job. I have a background in teaching. I want to break down the exercises and nutrition in an easily understandable and rememberable way. My goal is to work myself out of a job; I want to get you to a point where you can work out and eat healthy on your own. As someone who struggles with anxiety, my mental health is a big part of why I work out. I believe it should be a big part of why others work out. Short-term, working out improves mood. Long term, working out improves the body’s stress response. I was working out trains the body to respond better to physical strain, allowing us to respond better to mental or emotional pressure. My goal is to increase your stress response over time, so life isn’t so overwhelming.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renaenicoleparks/