Business Profile: Strong Mom Fitness, Yorktown

Forget marathons, UFC tournamentss, and the Olympics—personal trainer Janell Sokol prepares her clients for the most challenging task of all: Motherhood.

Sokol, whose business, Strong Mom Fitness, provides individual training sessions and group classes called “boot camps,” believes that moms who maintain their health and fitness are best equipped to balance the demands of work and family.

“Mom needs the energy to take care of her family,” said Sokol, who has two children herself. “If she’s not fit, her energy levels are going to lag. She gets tired and can’t keep up with her kids.”

Sokol, a former respiratory therapist, decided to seek a certification in personal training after observing that many of her patients’ health problems could have been avoided with a healthier lifestyle.

“I figured, let’s take care of them before they get sick,” she said.

With this goal in mind, Sokol focuses her training on improving overall health while building strength and endurance. Though many mothers seek out a personal trainer to lose weight, Sokol emphasizes that fitness goes beyond the number on a scale.

“Building strength evens out imbalances in our bodies, gives us energy, and boosts bone health,” Sokol explained. “And it’s much more fun to see how many push-ups you can do than how many pounds you lost.”

Operating out of her home and at clients’ houses, Sokol who lives in Yorktown, offers 45-minute training sessions designed to be effective as well as efficient. Sessions of this duration that vary types of training, even just a few times a week, actually do more for the body than daily hour-long cardio workouts, according to Sokol.

Sokol described a typical training session with a 55-year-old woman looking to build bone density and muscle mass.

“We do body-weight exercises, circuit training, use exercise bands and belts, hand weights,” she said. “Then we go the track and run sprints.”

Getting the most out of a short time period is essential for mothers, especially those who balance a full-time job with taking care of their families. Scheduling training sessions into the busy day of a working mother will always be a challenge, but Sokol encourages clients to prioritize their own health.

“Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day,” she said. “You can find time for your health- put that at the top of the list. Your kitchen doesn’t always need to be spotless, but your health needs to be good.”

By maintaining a healthy lifestyle, mothers can also provide a positive role model for their children.

“When I’m training a mom in her home, and her kids are around, they often come over and do planks and push-ups and sit-ups with us,” Sokol explained. “That’s very rewarding to me.”

Sokol, who bonds with her own children over hiking, swimming lessons, and tae kwon do classes, believes that giving kids the tools for a healthy lifestyle early on pays off. She hopes to eventually expand her business to work in childhood fitness.

Staying fit also helps mothers to avoid health problems down the road that would force them to stay bed-ridden for long periods. Sokol described a client of hers, a teacher and a mom, who sought a personal trainer after suffering a herniated disc multiple times.

“She was out of work for a few months,” Sokol said. “Now that she’s incorporated fitness into her life, she hasn’t had any back issues for about six to eight months. She feels like she’s never going to herniate that disc again.”

While Sokol often works on overcoming such injuries, her clients’ most frequent challenge is often just not knowing where to start. Attempting to lose weight or get fit on their own, many women jump into a workout routine too intense for their current fitness level and overwork themselves. A personal trainer like Sokol takes the guess-work out of developing a training plan, by working with individuals to find the exercises and techniques best suited to their bodies and their goals.

By giving them the guidance and support necessary to maintain their fitness, Sokol empowers women to set themselves and their families on the right path—one strong mom at a time.

For more information about Strong Mom Fitness, visit strongmomfitness.net. Services include individual and group training sessions, as well as weekly boot camp classes, starting on September 9.

Adam Stone

Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.