Book Description

Get to know the soul and heart behind Spirit Fitness Training in Joanne Blackerby's first book, "Training Effects," a journey through her tumultuous to triumphant life interwoven with tales from and about those she has trained, plus her keen observations on the pursuit and profession of personal training. It broadens and enhances the art of the memoir to reveal the craft of navigating oneself through life's chaos and challenges, and sketches out the map of the individualized route she offers all her clients for achieving full and enduring fitness. "Training Effects" was born out of Spirit Fitness Training and how those Joanne has known and trained shared their stories with her, which inspired Blackerby to open up and reveal memories painful, touching, revelatory, sometimes harrowing yet ultimately loving and inspirational about her privileged yet tumultuous childhood in Kingston, Jamaica and her family's flight from their homeland's political violence to North America. and ultimately finding herself and her place in life. Joanne's legacy of family and sexual violence, struggles as a multiracial immigrant, and how she overcame it all plus bouts of chronic depression and ADHD in adulthood to find fulfillment as a wife, mother and noted professional managing her own business are recalled within the key principles of training to illuminate how fitness is about body, mind, soul and ultimately one's whole life. Joanne's dynamic and warm interactions with clients whose tales she also tells throughout the book will feel familiar to longtime Spirit Fitness Training members and inviting to prospective and new ones, revealing her philosophy and approach regarding full fitness. "Training Effects" also takes a candid look at how her profession functions today with a sharp eye for how it must up its game and better serve the millions of people that practice its programs. Blackerby's book is also an engaging read that for all the trials she has faced leaves one with much the same sense of satisfaction and renewal that comes from a vigorous workout in which real progress is made.