Life Balance Fitness has grown its clientele more than sevenfold since opening last August.
The small group studio hosts classes capped at 14 people throughout the day. Some allow parents to bring their children while they exercise.
“One of the biggest things here, and it’s on all of our information, is that we’re fitness for everyone,” owner Jennifer Sherlock said.
She has trained people with intellectual and physical limitations throughout her career. Sherlock prides herself on adapting routines to the individual without impacting the rest of the group.
Her own fitness journey began near the end of a 12-year career in construction as a project manager and custom home builder. She was laid off and left the construction industry entirely.
She thought she’d study to be a nurse practitioner, but it wasn’t for her. Back then, Sherlock said, she was overweight, depressed, anxious and suicidal. Getting fit and becoming a group trainer at the Community Life Center helped her discover her passion.
“I wanted to help people who were like me, who had hit the bottom of the barrel and didn’t know how to take themselves out of it,” she said.
By the time she graduated from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis with a degree in exercise science in May 2016, she already had a lease for the studio and had been running classes out of her home.
Life Balance Fitness doesn’t cater to the “super athletic,” Sherlock said. Her goal is to show people they can be fit even if they aren’t “ripped like a fitness person.”
“I’m breaking the norms of fitness,” she said. “I’m breaking them.”
Originally published in Southside Times, 2017. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.