Growing up with a mother who was a fitness instructor, Leah remembers pulling on her mom’s tights, leotard and leg warmers, blasting some 80s music and performing an aerobic step routine in the living room. Leah has always been drawn to fitness, but didn’t realize her true passion for it until later in life.
After years of mimicking her mom’s profession, Leah didn’t follow that path right away. She did some track in middle school and enjoyed dance and cheer in high school, then left to study journalism and public relations at Arizona State University. A few years into her career, Leah was working at ASU and not doing anything consistent with fitness, but wanted a hobby. A co-worker encouraged her to join his triathlon group. Having never swam, biked or ran seriously, Leah was skeptical, but she is a person who welcomes new challenges and so she agreed. Within three years of that first practice, Leah competed in three full Ironmans, one half-Ironman and countless olympic and sprint distance triathlons, including the famous Escape from Alcatraz -swimming across the bay from Alcatraz Island.
It wasn’t until after the birth of her two daughters that Leah realized she was meant to be in fitness. She dealt with her own weight loss struggle, gaining 65 pounds with both pregnancies. After her first pregnancy, Leah only performed cardio with an attempt to compete in triathlons again, but her new schedule wasn’t conducive to the training commitment and while she did lose weight, she looked and felt weak. After her second pregnancy, she did solely strength training and experienced amazing results. Within months of strength training, Leah fell in love with lifting heavy! Not only did strength training help her achieve a strong and healthy body she never thought was possible, but also she gained confidence in herself and felt empowered to conquer anything.
During this time, Leah decided to pursue a career teaching girls and women how to strength train. She attended the National Personal Training Institute, engaging in more than 500 hours of classroom and lab instruction about human anatomy, kinesiology, biomechanics, nutrition, physiology, corrective exercise, movement patterns and proper spotting and lifting techniques. She became a certified trainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine and after three years of working in a gym, she opened her own private training studio in California where she taught for another two years.
Leah recently moved to Redmond with her husband and daughters, ready for new adventures. She is working toward becoming an elite powerlifter, a sport where your strength is tested in the big three - squat, bench, deadlift. She has competed in eight meets, even qualifying for national and world competitions. Leah is also working on becoming a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist from the National Strength and Conditioning Association and certified powerlifting coach from the United States Powerlifting Association.
Lifting has taught Leah about perseverance, patience, and embracing failure as well as success. She tells every client that the key to success in fitness is to stick to and trust the process, enjoy the journey and before you know it, you’re beyond where you expected to be. Leah wants to help other women discover and experience the empowerment that comes with strength training. Put some iron in your hands and suddenly you feel like Wonde