by: Julie D. Andrews
“I was born passionate, born moving, born athletic,” says Elissa Hyman. Her stomach is flatter than a pancake. Her legs are muscular. She is tiny, energetic. Who wouldn't want a woman looking this fabulous at age 48 as his or her personal trainer?
Since opening her gym at 334 E. 79th Street in 1994, Personal Trainer Elissa Hyman has grown a client base to more than 40 men and women who tap into her workout expertise weekly. Ranging in age from 13 to 85, some clients have been with her as many as eight or 10 years.
“As soon as I met Elissa I wanted to get started. She had ideas,” says Courtney Nadler, a 30ish woman who lives around the corner from the gym and is a client of two years.
Nadler admits to being a little apprehensive at first. Having never worked with a trainer before, she signed up to visit Hyman once a week. Soon, says Nadler, “the workouts were so interesting, I was seeing the results I wanted – so I changed to twice a week.”
Many people with a time-crunched lifestyle find working with a personal trainer a more effective way to work out. Tell your trainer what body area you want to improve, get a workout to achieve that precise fitness goal, achieve better results in less time.
Nadler says working with a trainer is more than efficient. It's motivational. “It's now two years later and I haven't done the same workout twice. The routines are changed up every time so you're never staring at the clock.”
Such workout variety doesn't happen by accident. Hyman attends fitness conventions, avidly reads the latest workout books and magazines, and watches the hot, new fitness DVDs. She even belongs to Equinox to keep pace with the latest classes.
One of Hyman's newer clients, a bride-to-be slimming down to fit trim into her wedding gown has lost 12 pounds in the past 8 weeks with Hyman's help.
“I'd rather be slower and smarter and vary the intensity of the workouts,” says Hyman, adding that she doesn't want her clients' muscles feeling so sore the day after a workout that they can't walk.
She doesn't want them ever feeling defeated by a workout, either. “This is about making people feel good about themselves. I want my clients to walk out smiling and feeling happy – like they accomplished something,” says Hyman.
It's a matter of teamwork, she says, on how personal training can work best for a client. And, something else: Listening. Working closely with each client, she listens to their individual needs and develops a fitness strategy for him or her built on those specific body goals.
That client/trainer relationship is ironclad and built on respect, says Hyman. It’s also reciprocal. When in 2003 Hyman suffered the devastating loss of her brother, it was her clients, she says, who kept her busy with work during a hard period of mourning and kept her business growing by referring friends.
Before opening her own gym, Hyman, who was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New Jersey, had a career in advertising. She then earned her master's degree in exercise physiology at Columbia University. While the fitness education enhanced her knowledge, the years she spent as an instructor at Vertical are what made her a better teacher and trainer, she says.
“I was a high-impact girl at Vertical. I used to command a room full of 200 people at my classes. There, I learned how to be a presenter,” says Hyman.
It’s her ability to explain to clients exactly what benefits certain moves reap, she says, that keeps them satisfied. “They want to know. They're bright. But, then again, who's not bright on the Upper East Side?” says Hyman with a smile.
Along with the results, it's positive reinforcement like that, which keeps clients going back for more. Her willingness to indulge in 80s Retro, blaring old-school Madonna from the gym speakers, might also play a role in her success.
Whether its Pilates, strength training, kickboxing, or hardcore boot camp you’re looking for fitness-wise, Personal Trainer Elissa Hyman can help you reach your body goals.
Typical Cost: About $75 per one-hour session if you sign up for a package; $100 for a single session without a package deal
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