I’m Stephen Holt, and I’m the personal trainer at 29 Again Custom Fitness in Timonium, Maryland. Women 50 and over are the only clients I train. I’ve been in this industry since 1979, and I’m the only trainer in the building, so the program you follow is one I wrote for you and coach you through myself.
You’re in the right place if your knees, hips or shoulders hurt when you exercise. Or if you’ve kept doing what you’ve always done and it’s producing less than it used to. Or if a doctor told you to lift weights and nobody showed you how.
At a Glance
| Your trainer | Stephen Holt, CSCS |
| Who I train | Women 50 and over, and nobody else |
| Awards | 2026 IDEA® Personal Trainer of the Year. 2003 ACE Personal Trainer of the Year. |
| Experience | In this industry since 1979. Full-time since 1997. Nearly 60,000 coached sessions. |
| Where | 2181 Greenspring Drive, Timonium, MD 21093 |
| The format | Custom Fitness Training: your own program, coached, at a time you book |
| What I coach | Strength training, posture and core work, training around joint limitations, nutrition |
| How you start | A Smart Start screening, then a free one-week trial |
Why a Trainer Who Works Only With Women Over 50
Most trainers take any client who walks in. That means nobody built your program around the specific things that change for a woman after 50.
Several things change after 50. Bone density declines faster. Muscle is harder to keep and harder to rebuild. Joints that gave you no trouble at 40 often hurt now. Hormonal change affects how well you recover and how much muscle you hold.
A program that ignores those changes will either produce no result or cause an injury.
Who Is Coaching You
I’m Stephen Holt. I’ve been in this industry since 1979, I’ve been certified since 1991, I’ve been a full-time personal trainer since 1997, and I’ve run this gym since 2010.
- IDEA® Personal Trainer of the Year, 2026.
- ACE (American Council on Exercise) Personal Trainer of the Year, 2003.
- NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS).
- Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition since 2010.
- BSE Mechanical Engineering, Duke University.
- Served on the team that wrote the Personal Trainer National Board Exam.
- The first full-time personal trainer to serve on a state’s fitness advisory council, the Governor’s Advisory Council on Physical Fitness.
- National Fitness Hall of Fame nominee, 2024.
- Contributing author to the Amazon best-seller The Fad-Free Fitness Formula (you get a copy free when you come in).
- Featured in Prevention, Shape, Women’s Health, Fitness, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Parade, HuffPost, Yahoo Health, Runner’s World and HerSports.
- Nearly 60,000 training sessions delivered.
I started my career in the physical therapy department at Union Memorial Hospital, and I still work alongside local chiropractors and physical therapists, including Peake Physical Therapy in Hunt Valley and Spine & Sports in Timonium. My wife is a rheumatologist.
Two separate organizations named me Personal Trainer of the Year twenty-three years apart. Awards like those go to trainers whose clients get results, so winning in 2003 and again in 2026 means the results kept coming across more than two decades and nearly 60,000 sessions. The problem I’ve spent that entire career on is a specific one: how a woman over 50 builds real strength when her joints, her bone density and her recovery are all working against her.
What My Clients Say
I have been working out consistently for the past 10 years, concentrating mostly on cardiovascular fitness/aerobics, and every time I attempted to adopt a weight training program in to my workout regimen, I would get frustrated and end up quitting because I felt like I was spending countless hours in the gym putting forth the effort, but getting no results. This is the only workout that has ever worked for me.
Lisa McDonald
I have been training with Stephen for the past 8 months and have noticed a tremendous difference in my stamina, physical strength and body. Stephen is a dedicated professional and is genuinely concerned about your success.
Diane Olsen
There is no doubt Stephen has changed my life and my approach to fitness. During the time I have trained with Stephen, he has provided nothing but positive and professional encouragement on helping me achieve my goals.
Kathy Jones
Everyone Starts With Smart Start
I understand you’re eager to get started, but I can’t let you just drop in and start lifting. Every client goes through Smart Start first, so that I have the data I need to build your customized program.
Get started in four easy steps:
- Answer the questionnaire. Three or four minutes on your history, your joints, and what you want to be able to do again.
- Pick your time. Submitting the questionnaire takes you straight to the calendar, so you can choose a day and time that fits your schedule.
- Come in for your Smart Start. We sit down in my office first and talk through your goals, your health history and your exercise history. Then we go out on the floor for the screening: the Functional Movement Screen, a musculo-skeletal screen, and photographs of your posture. Those show me how you actually move, which is something no questionnaire can tell me.
- Then you train, on your own program, at the times you booked. We book your first session before you leave.
Every exercise in your program is there because of something I found during your Smart Start. That’s where the “custom” in 29 Again Custom Fitness comes from.
What Custom Fitness Training Looks Like
Custom Fitness Training is the name for how I coach here. I’m a personal trainer doing personal training, and it just isn’t one-on-one.
You train on your own program, at your own scheduled time. One, two or three other women may be in the gym with you, and each of them is working her own program, built from her own screening. Your workout has nothing to do with theirs.
I coach you through every exercise. Nobody stands over you counting your reps, nobody leads the room, and nobody follows along. You’re measured against yourself, never against the woman next to you.
The principles behind your training don’t change. What changes is what you do and how much you lift, as you get stronger.
The 3-4-5 Total Body Strength System
Your program runs on the system I built: three planes of motion, four muscle sling systems, and five movement patterns.
The five patterns are push, pull, rotation, shifting your center of gravity, and single-leg work. The four slings are the Anterior Oblique, the Posterior Oblique, the Deep Longitudinal and the Lateral. Most personal trainers have never heard of the slings, and they are the reason your trunk stays stable when you carry something heavy up a flight of stairs.
Strength Training for Women Near Timonium
The gym is at 2181 Greenspring Drive in Timonium, in the 21093 ZIP code that also covers Lutherville. Clients come from Cockeysville, Hunt Valley, Towson and across northern Baltimore County.
If you’ve searched for strength training for women near you, the results are usually a large membership gym or an online program. This is neither. You train in person, on a program I wrote for you, with someone who has done this since 1979.
More about the gym itself, including what a session looks like from the inside.
Training hours
| Monday | 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM |
| Tuesday | 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM |
| Wednesday | 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM |
| Thursday | 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM |
| Friday | 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM |
Most clients train once, twice or three times a week. You schedule your times inside those hours.
Call 410-429-7029.
What Changes
Most clients feel their mobility improve within the first few sessions, because Smart Start shows me what’s most restricted and I aim the early exercises at it.
Visible strength changes take longer, and that’s basic physiology rather than a limitation of your program. Muscle needs repeated exposure to a load before it adapts. Four to six weeks of consistent training is a realistic timeline, and you should be skeptical of anyone promising faster.
The changes clients notice first are practical ones. Stairs get easier. Groceries get lighter. Getting up off the floor gets easier. The walk that used to wear you out stops wearing you out.
Specialized Training in Timonium
These programs sit inside the personal training framework and are available on their own or as part of a broader plan.
Posture and Core Training for Women Over 50 in Timonium
Posture after 50 is a functional problem, not a cosmetic one. It affects breathing, balance and pain. This work combines targeted strengthening, mobility and movement re-education to address rounded shoulders, forward head position and hip imbalance, built on deep core stability and spinal alignment. It works on its own and as the foundation under a full strength program.
Strength Training Around Joint Limitations
For women managing knee concerns, hip replacements or long-standing joint pain. I pick every exercise to keep the force on the muscle rather than the joint, and I still increase the load as you get stronger.
Nutrition Coaching for Women Over 50
I’ve been a Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition since 2010. The coaching runs alongside your training rather than off to the side of it. Your muscle responds to two inputs: the load you put on it, and the protein you eat afterward. Training on too little protein gives back a fraction of what the same training would otherwise give you.
Protein Is the Number That Matters Most
Older muscle responds to protein less readily than younger muscle does. Researchers call that anabolic resistance, and it means you need more protein in a single meal to get the same response you’d have had at 40. For most women over 50 that lands around 35 grams per meal. It’s a bigger number than most people expect, and it’s usually the first thing we correct.
We start from what you’re already eating. I’m a coach, not a dictator, and overhauling someone’s whole diet in the first week doesn’t hold. What holds is a small number of changes you can keep.
What Else We Work On
The rest is unglamorous, and it’s where most of the ground gets made up. You eat enough across the whole day instead of running short until dinner. You spread protein out rather than saving most of it for one meal. You keep the changes small enough that they survive a busy week, because the ones that don’t survive a busy week don’t count.
None of this replaces the training. Nutrition supports rebuilding muscle, and the strength work is what signals your body to rebuild it in the first place.
Nutrition coaching is its own service rather than part of a training package. Ask about it at your Smart Start and I’ll tell you whether it’s worth adding yet.
Take a Free Week First
You don’t have to decide anything today. Take a free week and find out.
Your Smart Start is day one of the free week. The week runs exactly seven days from there and includes up to two coached sessions, on a program I build for you, at no cost and with nothing to cancel afterward.
That week answers the questions a website can’t:
- You find out how the exercises feel on your knees and shoulders.
- You see what it’s like to have someone watching your form instead of guessing at it.
- You meet the women who train here and see that they’re your age.
- You find out whether a room this size suits you better than a floor with two hundred strangers on it.
Most people know by the second session. Some know right after their Smart Start.
Or call 410-429-7029.
Questions About Working With Me
Who is the personal trainer at 29 Again Custom Fitness?
I am, and I’m the only one. Stephen Holt, CSCS. I’ve been in this industry since 1979, a full-time personal trainer since 1997, and I’ve owned this gym since 2010.
What are your qualifications?
I’m an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a Precision Nutrition certified nutrition coach. IDEA® named me Personal Trainer of the Year in 2026 and ACE named me Personal Trainer of the Year in 2003. I also served on the team that wrote the Personal Trainer National Board Exam.
Do you train men?
No. Women 50 and over are the only clients I take, and that’s been true since I bought the gym in 2010.
Do you offer one-on-one personal training?
What I offer is Custom Fitness Training, which is personal training that isn’t one-on-one. Your program is written for you and I coach you through every exercise. One, two or three other women may be in the gym at the same time, each working her own program.
Can you train me if I’ve had a knee or hip replacement?
Often, yes. Your Smart Start screening shows me which positions and ranges to work in and which ones to stay out of, and I pick every exercise to keep the force on the muscle rather than the joint. Bring anything your surgeon or physical therapist told you, and we’ll build around it.
Will you work with my physical therapist or chiropractor?
Yes, and I do it regularly. I started out in the physical therapy department at Union Memorial Hospital, and I work alongside local practices including Peake Physical Therapy in Hunt Valley and Spine & Sports in Timonium.
How long before I see results?
Most clients feel their mobility improve within the first few sessions. Visible strength changes take four to six weeks of consistent training, because muscle needs repeated exposure to a load before it adapts. Be skeptical of anyone promising faster.
How often would I train?
Once, twice or three times a week, depending on your membership. We settle on the right number at your Smart Start.
Do you offer nutrition coaching?
Yes. I’ve been a Precision Nutrition certified coach since 2010, and nutrition coaching is its own paid service rather than part of a training package. Ask at your Smart Start and I’ll tell you whether it’s worth adding yet.
What is the 3-4-5 Total Body Strength System?
It’s the system I built and the one your program runs on: three planes of motion, four muscle sling systems, and five movement patterns. The five patterns are push, pull, rotation, shifting your center of gravity, and single-leg work.
More reading: the gym in Timonium, how we work, questions about the gym, and the training blog.