HEALTH+FITNESS
Going the Distance
The On-Line Video Workout Series of Griffin Hughes
By Amelia Smith
The transition to our current era of physical distancing presented a real challenge to Griffin Hughes.As a personal trainer, she thrives on face-to-face interaction. “Personal training is awkward to do via Zoom,” she says, but she has found a way to turn these challenges into opportunities. Instead of in-person training sessions, Griffin is recording workout sessions in the living room of her home she shares with her husband, a son, and two dogs.
The videos are a way for her to share her enthusiasm for health with people who would not have been able to come to her local classes. “Now I’m reaching people who I wasn’t able to work with before, to people in Florida, California and even Europe,” she says. “It’s actually brought me closer to a greater population, so in that sense it’s really been positive.” The nearly two dozen on-line workouts vary in length from a few minutes to more than half an hour, focusing on different muscle groups, stretching, cardio, and more. Many of them are quite challenging.Viewers can watch and workout at their own pace and at a time of their own choosing. Griffin brings her cheerful and
energetic optimism to each workout video, imbuing a deep and multi-faceted commitment to health and wellness.
Griffin spent a couple of summers on theVineyard while in college, then began her wellness career with a three-year massage therapy and somatic psychology course in California. She returned to the Island in 2006 and worked at Vineyard Complementary Medicine, seeing many patients and helping with their limitations.“Really it was there that I decided to become a personal trainer,” she says,“because I saw this huge gap between people being functional for daily life, and being ready for activities or getting back to their sports or regular exercise programs.” She also worked at the Boathouse Club, as their Wellness director, and later at Evolve Pilates, where she sees personal training clients and teaches classes in Indoor Cycling and TRX, a suspension training exercise. In addition to all of that, she became a health and nutrition coach.
She currently works privately with some clients over Facetime or Zoom, but the free classes are her main focus, and she does accept donations. People are changing their approach to fitness in a way that will have a long-term impact.“If we can’t have outdoor events,we’re certainly not going to have spinning classes,Griffin says.“Our spinning studio at Evolve is an unbelievable, underground experience. It’s like going to a good concert.You can’t replicate that kind of energy, but I don’t think that anyone is going to be in a hurry to get back into a sweaty room with thirty other people. I think if we all sit around and wait for it to get back to what it was, it’s going to be a long wait,who knows?” Griffin’s commitment to learning new things is helping her clients and new viewers continue to grow healthier and stay fit.
To learn more about Griffin Hughes Wellness, visit her on Instagram:@griffinmv and Facebook: Griffin-Hughes-Wellness or try her videos at https://linktr.ee/Griffinhughes
The videos are a way for her to share her enthusiasm for health with people who would not have been able to come to her local classes. “Now I’m reaching people who I wasn’t able to work with before, to people in Florida, California and even Europe,” she says. “It’s actually brought me closer to a greater population, so in that sense it’s really been positive.” The nearly two dozen on-line workouts vary in length from a few minutes to more than half an hour, focusing on different muscle groups, stretching, cardio, and more. Many of them are quite challenging.Viewers can watch and workout at their own pace and at a time of their own choosing. Griffin brings her cheerful and
energetic optimism to each workout video, imbuing a deep and multi-faceted commitment to health and wellness.
Griffin spent a couple of summers on theVineyard while in college, then began her wellness career with a three-year massage therapy and somatic psychology course in California. She returned to the Island in 2006 and worked at Vineyard Complementary Medicine, seeing many patients and helping with their limitations.“Really it was there that I decided to become a personal trainer,” she says,“because I saw this huge gap between people being functional for daily life, and being ready for activities or getting back to their sports or regular exercise programs.” She also worked at the Boathouse Club, as their Wellness director, and later at Evolve Pilates, where she sees personal training clients and teaches classes in Indoor Cycling and TRX, a suspension training exercise. In addition to all of that, she became a health and nutrition coach.
She currently works privately with some clients over Facetime or Zoom, but the free classes are her main focus, and she does accept donations. People are changing their approach to fitness in a way that will have a long-term impact.“If we can’t have outdoor events,we’re certainly not going to have spinning classes,Griffin says.“Our spinning studio at Evolve is an unbelievable, underground experience. It’s like going to a good concert.You can’t replicate that kind of energy, but I don’t think that anyone is going to be in a hurry to get back into a sweaty room with thirty other people. I think if we all sit around and wait for it to get back to what it was, it’s going to be a long wait,who knows?” Griffin’s commitment to learning new things is helping her clients and new viewers continue to grow healthier and stay fit.
To learn more about Griffin Hughes Wellness, visit her on Instagram:@griffinmv and Facebook: Griffin-Hughes-Wellness or try her videos at https://linktr.ee/Griffinhughes