Achieving fitness as a team

Personal trainer sets competitive course on being healthy

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 8/25/16

For many a healthy diet and regular exercise are part of life, but for Angela Gargano, fitness and health are her livelihood. She is as a personal trainer and fitness pageant contestant. Gargano, 26, grew up in New Jersey, moving to Rhode

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Achieving fitness as a team

Personal trainer sets competitive course on being healthy

Posted

For many a healthy diet and regular exercise are part of life, but for Angela Gargano, fitness and health are her livelihood. She is as a personal trainer and fitness pageant contestant.

Gargano, 26, grew up in New Jersey, moving to Rhode Island to join Rhode Island College’s NCAA Division III Gymnastics team and study biochemistry. She would go on to captain the gymnastics team and graduate in 2012. She would begin working for a Providence pharmaceutical company after graduation.

Having grown up an athlete, Gargano knew she couldn’t just work a typical job without having something to work on after hours. Unfortunately, due to tearing her ACL late in college, Gargano couldn’t compete in the high level of gymnastics she was used to, but she still wanted to be involved in the athletic world.

“I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just be sitting at a desk all day without some sort of release,” Gargano said.

That was when she discovered fitness pageants, where contestants show off their athleticism, focusing on gymnastics, dance, acrobatics and other high-energy visual routines rather than just figure shows.

She was introduced to Cathy Savage, a leading fitness competition coach, who immediately told Gargano she was going to compete, but first she had to learn to walk in heels. Immediately, Gargano began training and preparing. She would go on to win her first competition held in Boston and within the year Gargano would receive her “pro-card” in fitness. She would later go on to receive her pro-card in bikini as well. A pro-card ensures a contestant is competing on a professional level and is received when an individual displays.

“At this level you really never know who is going to win because everyone is competing at an insane level,” she said. “Everyone is so fit, talented and strong.”

According to Gargano, to be regularly involved with fitness competitions is a “lifestyle” because you have to be training well in advance of every show for the most part year-round.

Gargano works out six times a week, eating six high protein meals a day and drinking more than a gallon of water daily.

She said, “Its addictive. I think the best part of competitions is meeting people from all around the world. Some of these people are famous in their communities and even celebrities in their country for this.”

At only 26, Gargano said it is also nice to be surrounded by like minded women, who share her healthy lifestyle, when many people her age aren’t necessarily concerned this much for their health and aren’t as strict in what they eat and drink.

Many people think that this “lifestyle” is too strict, but Gargano assures that you can do it and it’s important to have a healthy body, but is does take “dedication.”

She believes fitness is now an “in thing.” More and more people are asking her about her regimen and interested in competition than when she started. Also, with the Olympics having just wrapped up, “everyone wants to be an athlete now.”

Back for season 7 Angela even competed in “American Ninja Warrior,” a television show where selected participants run through a difficult obstacle course focusing on strength. Although her run never aired on TV, she participated in Pittsburgh and made it further than the majority of people, but unfortunately did not move on to the next round. She is trying out for the upcoming season to hopefully make it further.

“There are a lot of factors they don’t really discuss on TV. They don’t tell you that it is very cold or that all the equipment is soaking wet from previous runners,” Gargano said.

In June, Gargano participated in Fitness Universe, an international Fitness America Pageant hosted in Miami. She won fourth overall in both routine and bikini pageants. She will also be competing again in November at Fitness America in Las Vegas and is well underway in her training.

Throughout competing in local, national and international competitions, Gargano discovered her career in pharmaceuticals was no longer something she enjoyed, that it wasn’t what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She ended up leaving her position and established AG Athletics, her own personal training company in early 2015. She hosts regular boot camps – “Sunday Shreds” – and monthly challenges for customers alongside personal training and nutrition tips.

Even though it was a “big risk” to change careers, Gargano said she loves what she does and it doesn’t even feel like work.

When she first started, her customers were friends and her first boot camp had only three people, but AG Athletics has “evolved” into a great success. Her shreds and boot camps are done out of a gymnastics studio in Cranston and Gargano believes many people respond to working out in a less intimidating atmosphere than a big gym.

Through her experiences in personal training, Gargano has seen some “incredible and amazing” transformations in her clients.

“People first come to me sometimes crying about their health, how they just let themselves go. In a few short months I see this transformation. It’s not just them losing weight, they smile more, laugh more and are just more confident overall,” Gargano said.

She said people embracing a healthy lifestyle experience more than just a physical change but also a mental one. She has seen people lose more than 40 pounds and change their entire lives.

Similarly, with the shreds, boot camps and challenges there is a “gym family” created where all participants root for one another, cheering each other on and supporting them with their individual goals.

Gargano said, “We conquer things as a team.”

On Monday, August 29, Gargano will host a free boot camp session at Dream Big Gymnastics, 41 Comstock Parkway, Cranston. You can sign up online. The free introductory course will have an option to sign up for discounted services.

For more information on Gargano or her services or to sign up for her class visit her website at www.agathletics.com or email her directly at angelagarganofitness@gmail.com.

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