Christine Bishop describes her job as a dental hygienist
as being extremely physically demanding, so for the past 15 years, she has
suffered chronic pain. However, since joining Seattle Kettlebell Club back in October, she's seen a significant decrease in her pain levels.
"By the first hour and fifteen minutes of the introduction workshop, I was out of pain, and I’m never out of pain,” Bishop
said. “I just realized that my body needed strength.”
Bishop has dabbled with free weights,
yoga, and other fitness classes, and before joining SKC says her fitness level was average. However, upon turning 40 she realized she wanted to make
some major changes in order to up her fitness game.
One piece of advice Bishop has for new members of SKC
is to not overthink the practice.
“Your brain gets in the way,” Bishop said. “You really
have to set your previous experience with fitness aside. Tell your brain to
chill out, and trust the process because Nikolai totally knows how to teach it.
Just trust that this does work.”
Outside of SKC, Bishop enjoys jogging, hiking, biking,
and rowing. She credits kettlebell training for improving her other physical
hobbies, and now that she sees running as less of a chore, she does it more consistently.
Bishop notes her diet has improved as well since joining SKC.
Bishop has participated in past 21 Day Challenges and claims that even though she was working a bunch during the challenge, she still found herself to be pain free.
“I felt really good and really energized. I definitely
was able to put on jeans that didn’t fit before,” Bishop said.
Bishop also praises SKC for its variety of class times
noting that most gyms do not offer classes throughout the day.
“The fact that you can completely change your mental
attitude in your day in 45 minutes is the coolest thing,” Bishop said. “It’s
the same length as a Netflix episode.”
Unfortunately, this month Bishop and her family will
be leaving Seattle and returning to her hometown of Bend, Oregon. Although
the city is very fitness-centric, she’s going to miss SKC like crazy.
“I’ve done a lot of gym memberships, and I’ve done a
lot of classes. This is by far my favorite, and I’ve been going to gyms for 20
plus years," Bishop said.
One thing she’ll miss the most about SKC is the
constant coaching and encouragement from the instructors. At other gyms, Bishop
notices that instructors will often perform the moves with the class where at
SKC, the instructors monitor the trainees.
“These instructors are by far the best. I like that
they’re not taking the class, so they watch you to make sure you’re doing it
correctly,” Bishop said. “I have been corrected in the middle of something,
which is what you want because the last thing you want is to hurt yourself.”
Bishop has been hard at work researching gyms in Bend,
and she’s optimistic that she’ll find something to match her physical needs;
however, she fears there’s truly no workout as beneficial for her body as
kettlebell. Even though there’s not a kettlebell gym in Bend, she’s hoping to
at least find a gym with kettlebells.
“The problem is I feel like if there’s not
kettlebells, I’m not going to get the body correction because what the
kettlebells does is like what a chiropractor would do for me. Something about
swinging combined with the weight gives me some sort of chiropractic adjustment,”
Bishop said.
We’ll miss you Christine! Good luck with your future
fitness endeavors!
-Camille Borodey
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