ABOUT ME
HELLO!
I'M RACHAEL!
I've been a native to the Phoenix area since I was about 3 years old and come from a big family of 11! As a kid, I loved playing outdoors and being in water as much as possible. At age 13, I was ecstatic to take my first ballet class! Being an older beginner dancer, I had to be placed in a class with girls a couple years younger than me so I could develop the foundational skills and techniques of ballet. That was a hard hit on my ego, but I really wanted to become a better dancer and knew I had to push past the awkward stage. So, I swallowed my pride and stayed focused on my goals. Within a couple of years, I finally worked my way into the more advanced classes and continued to work hard on improving my technique.
In my senior year of high school, I decided to take a break from dancing because I had a surprise due in September! As terrifying as it was to be pregnant at 17, it’s not something I view as a mistake. Jeremy was born in September of 2010 and he was the greatest, life-changing surprise I could ever ask for! I can’t imagine my life without him!
I had graduated from high school with a 2-year scholarship which was great, but at the same time stressful because it required me to go to school full-time within a year from graduating. I wasn’t mentally prepared for the demands of school on top of the demands of raising a baby. However, I survived and I owe it all to my big, supportive family that helped me along the way. I honestly could not have come to where I am today without their love and support all of those years!
When Jeremy was 5 months old, I started my first semester of college at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. In addition to my general classes, I registered for the dance program at CGCC to earn my AAFA in Dance. Those were some of my best years full of dance classes, rehearsals, performances, and dance festivals where I developed friendships that I still have today. That dance experience led me to perform with a company in Phoenix called MAC&Company where I continued my performing career.
All of my years of dancing really inspired me to focus on health and fitness in my own life. In 2014, I took my first anatomy class and discovered I was fascinated by the human body and loved learning about it! My professor suggested I look into exercise physiology programs to see if I could find a career of interest in that field. From there, I started to self-learn about exercise and the benefits of strength training and I was amazed by that information. I decided to supplement my dance training with 3 days per week of strength training workouts to see how it helped with dance performances. Even though I was already in good shape from dancing, I struggled with muscle fatigue during my performances because I was in multiple dances of each show. I waned to see how strength training could improve my stamina. After 4 months, my fitness improved dramatically! I saw amazing results both in my aesthetics and in my dance performance! This inspired me to pursue an education in exercise science and become a personal trainer so I could help others experience the amazing benefits I have experienced! After graduating from the dance program, I saw CGCC also offered an Exercise Science degree program with personal training certification prep classes, so I registered for the program!
At the beginning of my second semester, my husband, Jay, and I got married in 2017, and two months later we became pregnant with a second surprise! Again, I wasn’t prepared or ready for a new addition to the family, but, of course, he was a huge blessing that I didn't know I needed! During that pregnancy, I was finishing up my last two semesters of the exercise program and graduated two weeks after William was born! (He was due at the end of the semester but decided to come two weeks early!)
While I was in school, I realized I didn’t know very much about exercise during pregnancy. I still had to participate in the exercises and fitness tests as well as train people during my internship, so I wanted to make sure I was doing everything safely. My questions led me on a quest for research on exercise for pregnant women, but I wasn’t finding enough information. I came across an educational course called Fit For Birth where I learned in-depth information about exercise during pregnancy and postpartum. Earning my Fit For Birth certification furthered my understanding of health and fitness and gave me the confidence to start developing exercise programs for mamas!
I realized there are so many women who don’t know what exercises they should and should not do during pregnancy and postpartum. There is a lot of mixed information on the web and it’s hard to know fact from fiction. This realization and my personal experience led to the creation of my personal training program, Curved Fitness!
Having personally experienced pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, I know it’s challenging to maintain a consistent exercise regimen when life becomes busy and, at times, overwhelming. I know how challenging it is to feel like yourself again during the postpartum stage, and how every day is constant battle against postpartum depression. I know what it's like to struggle with weight loss and healing diastisis recti after pregnancy. Starting a new workout routine as a new (or experienced) mother with new aches and pains is not easy. For these reasons and more, I want to help make fitness less intimidating, less stressful, and less time-consuming for mamas by creating personalized workouts that can be done anywhere at any time. The focus of Curved Fitness is to help strengthen women who are in all stages of motherhood by removing barriers and providing personalized and practical exercise programs that are tailored to each woman’s lifestyle. I am always inspired by the amazing capabilities of the human body and have a strong desire to help my clients reach their true potential and feel their best. I’m a firm believer that regardless of circumstances, the human body is meant to move and continuously be challenged to grow and build new strengths. I have a strong passion to help women feel empowered to stay active during pregnancy, after birth, and throughout motherhood!
