Putting the ‘fit’ into profit

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This article was published 08/04/2022 (1561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Back straight, right foot forward, left behind. Knees at 90 degree angles — and lunge.

Johanna Seier walks her viewers through proper posture, clad in leggings in her revamped dining room. A yoga mat and exercise equipment take the place of a typical table and chairs set.

You can count the people in the room on one hand. But, hundreds — maybe thousands — of eyeballs will watch Seier later, on her new app.

She launched The Fit Girl Gang app in March, after spending 2021 filming hundreds of workout videos, uploading fitness plans and perfecting recipes.

“I wanted… women to be able to go into the gym and not just be like, ‘OK, I’m allowed to be here,’ but to be like, ‘I know what I’m doing, and I just as much have a right to be here as anyone else,’” Seier, 28, said.

Creating an app was the next step in providing content for The Fit Girl Gang’s near 6,000-person membership, she said. It’s an online and in-person community focused on physical and mental health that’s been growing since 2017.

Anyone can get into exercise, Seier said.

“I’m not athletically gifted at all,” she said. “My dad always said, when it came to playing soccer… ‘You run the most of anyone on the field, but you touch the ball the least.’”

She noticed women shied away from the weights section when she began training at 19 years old. Exercise was a break from studying business at the University of Manitoba.

“I was kind of just the only woman playing around with the weights and trying to figure it out,” she said.

It sparked her to get a personal training certification. She’d load up her 1999 Dodge Caravan with dumbbells and kettlebells and drive to customers’ houses.

“I realized I want to bring women fitness in a way (where) it isn’t about just changing our bodies, but it (allows) women to feel more confident in who they are.”

Seier started hosting bootcamps with a handful of ladies and watched the relationships, and accountability, blossom.

“Something as light-hearted as a workout… it’s not anything serious or life-threatening… but it just bonded them together, and I saw that,” Seier said.

In 2015, she launched a fitness e-book called The Fit Girl Guide. Roughly a year later, the piece was taken down — a company in the U.S. had copyrighted the name and was threatening to sue, Seier said.

But, it was a learning experience.

“It just sort of sat in the (book) section of (customers’) phones… so they’d do it for about a week and then just kind of leave it,” Seier said. “I just knew that people needed more of a support system.”

She turned her attention to building an online community. Thus began The Fit Girl Gang.

Around 100 people became members during the 2017 launch, Seier said. They’d join TFGG bootcamps, and access workout plans and recipes on the company’s website. They’d also connect with each other on a private Facebook group, where Seier hosted live chats every other day.

Word of mouth grew the group, as did social media: Seier, who has more than 20,000 followers on Instagram, shares exercise tips and her own life experiences online. When COVID-19 struck in 2020 — and TFGG workouts went live virtually — the gang exploded, Seier said.

Brittany Timlick-Bryson joined that March, after a pandemic-related layoff. She was full-time at home with her then four-year-old son and one-year-old daughter.

“The not moving my body, and the not doing anything, was (bad for) my mental health,” Timlick-Bryson said.

She started following the gang’s live workouts four to five times a week. Now, she’s purchased a gym membership, attends TFGG bootcamps weekly and said she’s testing a new fitness program for Seier.

Timlick-Bryson has four “accountability partners” she contacts regularly; they check in on each other’s physical and mental health.

“We’re not working out because society tells us we need to be a size two, and we’re not setting unrealistic goals,” Timlick-Bryson said. “We’re working out because it makes us feel good.”

Some members have become life-long friends, she said.

She uses the TFGG app to track her workouts and habits, to watch its videos and to look up recipes and make grocery lists. She said the gang — and a registered dietitian who comes on board to talk about food — has helped her unravel her eating disorder.

“I’m honestly still really struggling… (but) I can proudly say that, more often than not now, I (will) at least eat two full, really good meals… instead of constantly starving myself,” Timlick-Bryson said.

She answers daily journal prompts through the app and can listen to Seier’s podcast.

The app sometimes glitches, but it’s constantly evolving, Seier said. It’s only available to Apple phone users, so members such as Kelsey Martin — with an Android device — don’t have access yet.

For now, Martin shows up to Prairie CrossFit for TFGG’s bootcamps. She said she’s proud of her consistency and called the gang “personal”.

“(Seier) makes an effort to get to know you,” Martin said, adding she can ask questions about anything.

Olivia Retter said TFGG’s Facebook group engaged her when she started. Now, she’s a coach, leading TFGG’s mothers’ program.

The app has 10 10-week training programs, with more to come, Seier and Retter said. The program splits its focus five ways: gym and home, and beginner, intermediate and advanced.

“It’s just the most incredible community,” Retter said. “Everyone hypes you up and you hype them up back.”

An annual app subscription costs $180, while monthly is $19.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com