Good. Beginners do well here, because nothing is left to guesswork.

We start you with lighter resistance and simple movements, and we teach you the form before we add load. You’ll know what every exercise is for and how it should feel. As your strength goes up, the weight goes up with it, which is the whole point of training.

Nobody is keeping score against anyone else. Every woman in the room is on her own program, at her own weights, at her own stage. Plenty of them started exactly where you are.

Yes, and it’s most of what I do.

Achy joints tend to improve when the muscles around them get stronger. We look at how you move first, pick exercises that load the muscle without provoking the joint, then build up gradually. If a movement bothers you we swap it, because there’s always another way to train the same muscle.

What we don’t do is have you sit out and wait for it to settle. Strength training done properly is what changes it.

First, our attorneys insist you start with some quick legal CYA mumbo-jumbo. :-)

At most gyms you’d jump straight into exercising. We don’t. Your first visit is your Smart Start screening. We go through your medical history, your exercise history and what you want to be able to do. Then I look at how you move through some basic patterns, check where you’re tight or weak, and we finish with a few photographs for postural analysis.

You may notice I call it a screening, not an assessment. Assessment is a term legally reserved for licensed health care professionals like physicians and physical therapists. I’m a trainer, so I screen how you move.

All of that tells me which exercises to start you with and how we’ll progress them. You can book it from the short questionnaire, which takes three or four minutes.

Yes and no.

Yes, in that everything is individual. Your Smart Start screening, and the program I write from it, are yours alone. That’s the “Custom” in Custom Training.

No, in that this isn’t the traditional one-on-one most people picture. We follow the physical therapy model, where clients work through their own individual programs at the same time in the same room. You’re free to talk to the other women as much or as little as you like, and most people find the company helps them keep showing up.

We coach you through every exercise, so you’ll never be lost or confused. You just don’t need a trainer standing over you counting your reps. You’re paying for the programming and the coaching that produce the result.

Your monthly investment depends on how many times a week you train. We don’t sell sessions in blocks.

You’re committing to three months, and so am I. Three months is what it takes to produce lasting change. Most members stay far longer than that, because they’re so happy with their results.

Again, yes and no.

Yes, you’ll agree to a set amount that comes out of your account automatically on roughly the same date each month.

No, because you train at set appointment times instead of dropping in. With a Double Gold membership you come in twice a week, at times we pick together. We’ll find you another slot when something comes up.

We decide that together at your Smart Start, once I’ve seen how you move and we’ve talked through what you want to be able to do and what your typical week looks like.

Most of my clients train twice a week, on a Double Gold membership. Whether that’s right for you depends on where you’re starting and your goals.

Selling 10 or 12 session packages doesn’t make much sense, because there’s no physiological reason behind those numbers. Ask a trainer how long it takes to get results your friends and co-workers will notice and most of them say 8 to 12 weeks, which is longer than the package they just sold you.

What you’re really after is results other people can see, and that takes time rather than a magic number of sessions. Do your part for 3 months and you’ll have them.

We’ll do our best to move you into another time slot in the same week.

Your membership already has free days built into it.

Double Gold runs two sessions a week for three months. You get at least 26 sessions depending on which days you train and which three months, and you pay for 24. That’s a free week.

Beyond that, we can usually move you to a different day or time that still suits you.

You’ll feel a difference in how you move within the first few sessions. Your Smart Start screening shows me where your movement is actually restricted, so I can aim your exercises there and the change shows up early.

Most clients notice easier movement, better posture and less stiffness in ordinary things before anything shows in the mirror. Changes you can see usually take 4 to 6 weeks, depending on how consistently you train.

That depends on where you’re starting and which membership you’re on. Many members find that two sessions a week here plus an active life is all they need to reach their goals. If you need more than that, I’ll tell you what it should be.

Yes. I’ve been a Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition, the largest and most respected certification agency in the industry, since 2010.

The coaching is practical rather than restrictive. No meal plan you’ll abandon inside a month, and no forbidden foods. We work on what you actually eat, in the life you actually have, and change it in ways you can keep up.

Protein is where most women over 50 fall short, and once you’re training seriously it matters more than anything sold in a bottle. That’s usually where we start.

That depends on you, and it’s a question I’d rather answer once I know your medical history, what you already take and what you actually eat.

Two things I’ll say generally.

The first is that food does the heavy lifting. Supplements work at the margins, and most women over 50 would get more out of eating enough protein than out of anything in a bottle.

The second is that omega-3 supplements, whether fish oil or krill oil, have reasonable research behind them for general health and are worth raising with your doctor. They are not a fat-loss product, whatever the label claims.

None of this is medical advice and I’m not a physician. Check with yours before you start any supplement, particularly if you take a blood thinner or manage an ongoing condition.

No. We use a system I call Undulating Periodization with an A/B Split. There’s a chapter I wrote about it in the Amazon best-seller The Fad-Free Fitness Formula, and I’ll be glad to give you a copy when you come in.

I’m Stephen Holt, CSCS. I’ve been in this industry since 1979, certified since 1991, and I’ve coached nearly 60,000 sessions.

I was named 2026 Personal Trainer of the Year by IDEA® Health & Fitness Association. In 2003 I was named Personal Trainer of the Year by ACE (American Council on Exercise), and AllExperts.com named me their Expert of the Year.

My fitness and nutrition advice has been on the covers of Shape, Women’s Health and Woman’s Day, and in Prevention and Parade.