👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
My name is Renny Hunter and I’m 20 years old. I’m originally from NYC and currently live in Connecticut.
I teach group fitness classes at Revolution Training as well as keeping a free lance client roster of my own.
If I’m not training you can find me on my computer doing social media managing work for my various clients or waitressing nights at Sedona Taphouse.
In the midst of that crazy schedule, I’m always trying to provide my Instagram followers and YouTube subscribers free content that revolves around fitness, wellness and my life!
I’m newly single with two dogs that are my entire life!
I’ve been training clients for 4 years now and I can’t really pinpoint one thing that got me into the field.
It was a combination of having two fitness professionals in my immediate family, my mother always being conscious of feeding me natural foods (even when we were struggling financially during my childhood) and turning to working out as an outlet when therapy just didn’t seem to be helping my mental illnesses.
I was told my whole life that my body was made for team sports (all 4 of my brothers play basketball and various other sports) but always hated the weight of a team on my shoulders.
What I love about the way I train and train others is the fact that your only competitor is yourself!
Like I mentioned before, I love filming, editing and creating content to put out to the world!
I just recently got into painting since the quarantine has hit my area and bought a guitar to finally challenge my mind with trying to learn how to play an instrument – I’ll keep you guys updated on that one!
I’ve worked with many different sponsors since starting my presence on social media and love dipping my toe into different athletic wear lines, supplement brands and gyms.
My latest sponsorship that sadly came to an end (because the gym closed down a few months ago) was UFC Gym in my town.
I started taking classes there a few years ago and fell in love with boxing – it is still to this day my favorite form of cardio!
I was gifted free classes and merchandise in exchange for what I was already doing every time I came to train (coming in, filming and uploading my footage to my social media channels – after talking to the owner of course).
I think they saw the value in my work after a couple of months and wanted to take it to the next level by having my gloves, wraps and apparel all have UFC Gyms’ name on it!
It’s important to make sure the sponsorship you agree to aligns with your brand and is something you’re ready to take on!
Going back to what I said earlier I think my favorite part of body building and fitness is the confidence it gives me.
I’ve dealt with a lot of insecurities as well as eating disorders in my early years of life and the only thing I can attribute my healthy lifestyle now to is both mental and physical strength that I gained in the gym.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
To ask me what a typical day of training is like for me is kind of a loaded question…
My training has changed so much since I started out when I was just tagging along with my mom to the gym… doing what she showed me which I know now is just the very simple basics of “working out”.
As of last year I have completely changed my eating and exercise behaviors. I ditched calorie counting, stepping on a scale or anything that made my way of like quantifiable.
I enjoy many methods of training; body building, yoga, boxing, hiking and more! I believe in functional training and moving in the way your body wants to on that given day.
Since our recent global lock down I have adapted to long hikes, at home yoga flows and light weight resistance training.
If I had it my way I would be in the gym for at least an hour and a half a day doing either of resistance training, HIIT, yoga, boxing, or maybe a mix of some of those modalities into one session.
I’m more of a lone wolf when it comes to working out, I always encourage others to join me but give a constant disclaimer that you can follow my lead (or I will follow yours), we can tweak each others form if necessary but if we aren’t filming a video 9 times out of 10 my headphones will be on.
I don’t think it’d matter if Chelsea Piers had the best sound track out there, there’s something about drowning everything out with a pair of headphones over your ears while lifting weights or pushing through cardio.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
Nothing in this world stays constant forever
If you treat the way you train, the way you eat, the way you love your body as a lifestyle it’s completely a mind game.
There are going to be times where you can’t reach your motivation and I believe you should not penalize yourself for moments.
Maybe because I’m someone who deals with so many mental battles in my head on a daily basis, I have more sympathy for myself and others on those days where I cannot get out of bed – that doesn’t mean I won’t walk into those gym doors tomorrow (and even if I don’t) – THAT’S OKAY TOO!
I’ve gone through months without even stepping foot into my gym that I pay close to $100 a month on, continuously telling myself I’d go “tomorrow,” every day for 6 months, but I was going through one of the darkest points in my adult years thus far… AND THAT’S JUST LIFE!
Let the way you train, the way you eat, the way you love your body ebb and flow just like anything else in your life.
Nothing in this world stays constant forever, it’s just not humanly possible.
But at least remember this… there will be days where you push open those gym doors, get onto that field, start that run, march up those rocky hills, that you feel like your own version of a super hero.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Just like everyone else during the pandemic, I’m sure our training days have drastically changes. Switching dumbbells for detergent bottles, adding more resistance band exercises than ever, stretching, getting back into calesthenics…
I think this time proves to us how much of our life is out of our control and to work with the little we do have control over.
Luckily most of my parks and trails are still open to the public with the 6 foot distance restriction, with that I have been going on at least 1-2 hikes a week with my dogs, doing more cardio outside, moving through yoga practices on rainy days and overall just spending so much more time outdoors!
Stress often times takes my nutrition through a ringer. The first two weeks of this quarantine, I was anxious ALL DAY LONG, making my stomach fill up with nervousness tricking my mind into thinking I’m “too full” to eat.
I lost a little under ten pounds (sitting at 127 lbs. – which for someone who is 5’8 1/2 is pretty light) and I’m working towards gaining upwards of ten pounds back on.
I feel the most me at 140 – 145 lbs. I feel strong enough to protect myself and confident enough to walk down the street without caring who’s looking.
I don’t think I would change anything about my journey, just like anything it’s been great learning through my mistakes and I wouldn’t have gotten where I am without them, AS CORNY AS THAT MAY SOUND – it’s the truth!
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
I always say personal trainers need personal trainers. I think it’s nearly impossible to build correct movement patterns without a mirror or someone watching you!
Form is the most important thing, so before racking extra weight to your movement make sure you can do it in correct form at a high rep range.
If I’m injured I listen to my body, if all I can handle is walking with my dogs for the next week so I can be back into the gym on Monday, that’s what I’m going to do.
I’m fortunate enough to be able to invest in my recovery as well as my clients by having gadgets like the Hyperrice Hypervolt for an accelerated recovery process.
Nutrition, sleep, recovery time are all factors that a lot of people fail to incorporate into their or keep track of along with their training regime.
There is individual variance to everyone’s journey but I personally work best with straying away from processed foods (as much as I can), sleeping at least 6-7 hours on a work day (7-8 on the weekends) and allowing my ‘split routine’ to encourage enough time for my muscles to recover before the next workout.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
I cycle on and off supplements and vitamins
My diet is intuitive, like I said earlier, I stray away from processed foods as much as I can and really base what I eat around that rule of thumb.
I’d like to say realistically my diet consists of 75% unprocessed meats, dairy, fruits and vegetables and 25% for my sweet potato tortilla chips, eating out, and sweet cravings.
Being someone who has dealt with my fair share of eating disorder tendencies, I feel like the only way to have a healthy relationship with food is to let myself eat what my body needs and for the most part also what it craves.
Restrictions have only led to days of not eating with a day full of binge eating to follow it up.
I cycle on and off supplements and vitamins, some days I need an extra boost with some kind of pre-workout.
I like trying different brands, my most recent purchase was a couple of products from Ghost by suggestion from Christian Guzman on YouTube.
Other days I might not get the amount of nutrients I’d usually like so I’ll drink some greens, maybe it was a gloomy day and I feel the need for a Vitamin D capsule (this is especially important for people who deal with clinical depression, like myself – fish oil as well.)
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
I pride myself on the fact that I take everything I learn and try to somehow incorporate it into my own practice and teaching (when the information proves reliable).
From YouTube videos (Nikki Blacketter, Christian Guzman, Hanna Oberg to name a few), to my time studying with both ISSA and NASM, learning from Equinox’s fitness training institute teachers, my peers in the industry as well as my family members (Tom Day – my godfather, SlowBurn trainer) and friends (Nicole Robert – Equinox trainer, Chordale Booker – professional boxer, Jeff Glover – personal trainer) in the industry.
I think something to remember about every avenue in your life is that “There are so many chapters to your story. Many editions and revisions can be produced if need be. Don’t be afraid to flow.”
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
My best advice for someone just starting out is to ditch the idea of trying to look good around others (if not in the gym, wherever your training might take place), once you can let go of that you’re free from judgement from others including yourself.
You will be in the mind state to accept failures and ACTUALLY learn from them. I think everyone should start out with a personal trainer if financially possible, to prevent injury and ultimately help you to your goal the efficient way.
Fitness and health professionals are certified for a reason! I’m all about using free resources but you can’t correct form through a YouTube video…
Although all the Instagram girls might be doing pistol squats, start with the basics and progress. The “fun” workouts won’t be any help to building your booty if you can’t preform a simple body weight squat correctly.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
Sustainable long term goal setting and tackling is my motive!
I’m always taking on clients! If you live in the Fairfield County/Westchester area, you can reach me via my business email [email protected] or on Instagram at @rennyhunter_fit!
I believe very strongly in 1 on 1 training but have opened my doors to online clients during these extremely unique times!
I think the difference between myself and most trainers is that I want to set you up with tools you can utilize for a lifetime, not just to get you through the next 8 weeks until you fit into that dress or add inches onto your biceps.
Sustainable long term goal setting and tackling is my motive!
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
I’m so excited to announce that I will be starting up my podcast in August of 2020! The first episode will be live on my birthday August 17th, 2020!
More details on that to come so make sure you keep up with me on all the rest of my social media outlets leading up to that:
Instagram: @rennyhunter_fit
YouTube: Renny Hunter
