Welcome back to “MEMBER SPOTLIGHT”. Each month we will highlight one member and talk with them about their personal lives and fitness journey. I am so thrilled that Logan, a trusty 6:45 pm-er, shared her story with me!
“You hear the word ‘burpees’ and you say ‘no, stay away from me!’ Logan, quoting her past self. Despite this, Logan came into the gym for the first time in Fall 2019. Her work pal had been sharing his workout stories with her every morning and his energy and excitement inspired her to give Graviton a try. “I got to the point where I was like how am I winded carrying groceries up the stairs? I came to Graviton with the bare minimum athletic experience,” she said.
Logan started coming in three times a week, got her husband involved, and was loving it. Then COVID happened and she tried the online thing and then “went dark for a couple of months. Then Vince called me up.” Plus, her 6:45 friends were texting her, telling her to come back in. Logan is now back to her three times a week routine.
Like myself (and many of you!), Logan considers herself “metrics driven.” She loves tracking her progress over the weeks and months. Coach Henry convinced her to get a FitBit and she discovered that since starting at Graviton, her resting heart rate is 10 bpm lower. The physical changes and mental health that come along with a fitness routine are great effects, she shared, but it’s the long-term investment that keeps Logan consistent.
“Vince says athletics for life… If I can get down on the ground and do 15 burpees and when I’m 60 I can get down on the ground and pick up a grandkid. I don’t want to hit a new personal record every couple of months, I want to make sure that I’m doing the workouts in a way that’s going to sustain me for years to come. If that means taking it a little bit easy one day, then I do that. I feel so much more in tune with my body”.
By day, Logan loves to go antiquing and curating a beautiful home space. When she was 25, she retired and traveled across the country with her husband, Jonah, hitting as many national parks and eating as much tasty food as they could (an experience she highly recommends!). She has had a pretty badass and busy couple of years, including buying a condo and adapting as her small startup was acquired by Salesforce. Scaling from a 50-person company up to an 80,000 one was an exciting challenge for Logan. As the senior manager of engineering, keeping a feeling of community at a larger company and in a remote world has been a major goal of hers.
Community was a theme we kept returning to during our chat. Logan loves being part of a gym right in her neighborhood; “I like when you walk in and you sign in, it’s fun, you see the same people every day, sense of community, build a bond of sweat with your neighbors.” We talked about how knowing that other people are expecting you to be there and are cheering you on was a surprising but awesome aspect of the group at Graviton. For newcomers, Logan thinks that starting and then feeling like a part of the community were two key pieces of success. “Just do it. Starting is the hardest but once you start, Vince will be on your case about coming in. If you’re debating it, just stop, freaking do it. My biggest regret is that I didn’t start this sooner. You gotta show up and make a friend so they expect you to be there. Graviton is invested in you, the coaches and your peers are invested in your success, in a non-aggressive way.”
One of Logan’s favorite Graviton moments was moving from the silver training bar to the **regular bar. “It showed progress, I thought ‘oh i can do this, wow!’ “ Now, “none of the workouts instill fear- I feel like every time I see a workout, I think ‘I can do that. It’s gone from a question mark to an exclamation point.” Her proudest Graviton achievement is two-fold: “I’m most proud that I enjoy it and that I’ve made it a routine. I’ve never had any sort of real, very physically challenging routine.”
I was lucky enough to meet Logan when she first started. She has one of those personalities that feels like a big warm hug as you are chatting, and a positive energy that is really contagious. Logan is a person who lifts others up, which I meant in an emotional sense but also, you saw that she’s lifting increasingly heavy weights so could also be taken literally… We are so grateful that you are here and so thrilled to watch as you build a lifelong habit.
The big question remains-- do burpees still send Logan running? Although she COULD run from them with all of her cool cardio gains, she now is only “a tiny bit afraid of burpees.”