Training with
Strength training at Present Tense Fitness is an individualized, detail-oriented, empathetic process in which we center your specific needs without judgment.
Whether you’re a professional dancer seeking newfound strength and power, a general population client who wants to be a strong, resilient version of yourself, or a young person who wants to learn the keys to lifelong fitness and intentional movement, we’re adept at training you to go from where you are–regardless of injuries or illness or experience in the gym–and helping you get just a little stronger each week.
222 E. 6th St. Dayton, OH
64 W. 3rd St. New York, NY
Our training offerings
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Whether you’re in New York City or our Dayton flagship location, we approach personal training with an eye toward teaching and learning with your body as the template. Personal training is about, well, training, but it’s also about learning. When do I increase the weight? By how much? Why should I do this exercise instead of that one for my body and circumstances?
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The teaching and learning that happens with personal training also occurs with partner training, but with partner training you can send affirming texts with your training friend and exchange notes on the journey. It’s also extremely helpful to train alongside someone—other than your coach—who will reinforce all of the improvements you make in your strength and conditioning along the way. Noticing that progress is one of the most important aspects of turning a new lifestyle change into a permanent one.
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We’re proud at Present Tense Fitness that people have formed friendships and made important connections in our spaces. The atmosphere we try to create—free from judgment of others or self—lends itself to community-building with fitness and hard work and personal achievement as the backdrop. With semi-private training you’ll be training with three or more people, but working from an individualized training program just the same. The biggest difference between semi-private training and private training is that your coach may not be able to watch every single repetition of an exercise.
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We have very limited slots for remote programming or Zoom training. This option works best for people who have already worked with us in person.
What to expect
Initial consultation
The first step in the process of training with us is always a conversation. We’ll ask you about why you decided to train now, what your experience in the gym is, what your goals are, and about your injury history. We never charge for this conversation because it’s as much about you getting to know us as it is about us understanding your needs. It’s the very first step toward establishing a working relationship, which is critical for sustainable success in training.
Individualized programming
We develop an individualized program for you that takes into account everything you told us in that initial conversation and the things we learn when we first watch you move. Depending on your background and interests in the gym, we may take you through a formal assessment during your first time in the gym, or we may take you through a workout that helps us determine what movements are available to you.
Intentional training cycles
We write our training programs in increments of four to five weeks, for two reasons. First, we want to subject your body to different stimuli, different planes of motion, and different loading strategies to help make you as adaptable as possible. Second, new programs often bring a new excitement about the gym, helping to prevent boredom and ensuring that you have to stay attentive during the sessions.
Our work with the dance population
We approach training dancers the way a strength coach at a college or professional sports team would, which is to say with rigor, consistency, detailed programming, and an eye always toward injury mitigation and individual needs.
Traditionally, dancer “cross training” has been an assortment of random exercises that often look like dance. You might see a dancer balancing on a BOSU ball or standing in arabesque with a barbell on her back. But at Present Tense Fitness, we engage seriously with the work of exercise science which tells us that strength and conditioning for dance ought to be danc(ER)-specific, and not just something that looks like dance.
We want the dancers we work with to feel confident that they’ve developed the physical resiliency and adaptability that will allow them to perform well regardless of the choreography or the movement language of the choreographer.
“We love so much the idea of the struggling artist that we enfranchise not the artist, but the struggle. In fact, we insist on it.”
