Meet Marty, The Catholic Fitness Coach
Within the last few years I have found myself feeling comfortable, confident, grateful, relaxed and hopeful. I am confident it is because I have found my unique call of sanctity as The Catholic Fitness Coach. I’ve been on my search for what God has created me for and why since my senior year in high school. On my senior high school class retreat, we were in our groups and our task was to find a scripture and apply to our class. I was not very knowledgable about the Bible at the time, but I did recall my John 1:1-14 from my 8th grade religion teacher and figured I’d start there. In the precess of the reading the passage:
“In the beginning was the Word
The Word was with God
And the Word was God.”
(John 1:1)
At first I was thought it was good considering the Catholic all-girls high school I went to was Incarnate Word High School… I kept reading.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
And then a light went on in my head in realizing that the high school I attending was named after the Word made flesh, the Incarnate Word, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I found myself in wonder and awe in reflecting on that verse. In doing so, I made the connection between the Word made flesh walking among us 2000 years ago with how He still among us 2000 years later, and is doing so through us. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was was referring to the incarnational reality of creation, more specifically human beings. The truth is He continues to reveal Himself through every human person through their gifts and talents as part of His plan to redeem the world, especially the whole human person.
As I took my turn to share my reflection with my classmates at the retreat, a gust of wind came through and I heard a voice say, “I have something for you to do.”
From that moment I found myself on a mission to learn what that meant. At first I thought maybe a history teacher because my favorite subject in high school was history. I loved reading history, and my world history teacher was definitely my favorite teacher in the way she presented the stories. These told me something about humanity- the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was almost like following the plot in a Harry Potter book or movie.
Then, I figured maybe Campus Ministry. I started getting involved in my senior year in high school and a lot of it came naturally to me. The campus minister at the time was a great influence in my life in getting clarity on some things I was trying to understand, so naturally I continued with the momentum in participating in the Campus Ministry program at the university I attended, the University of the Incarnate Word. (As you can see there is a common theme here in how the Incarnate Word has continued to draw me to Him through the mystery of who is He is).
After college I taught high school religion, worked in Campus Ministry, hospital ministry, hospice ministry, and parish ministry. In all those experiences I developed a lot of skills, grew in my love of Christ, became more passionate for Catholicism, and of course learned more about myself in what I really like to do. I always liked the ministry aspect, but I didn’t exactly enjoy the administrative work that had to be done behind a computer screen. And I found myself really preferring work where the majority of my time was spent doing the mission rather than the busy work.
In time I found it. After being married to husband for three years, we finally got pregnant. We had some complications with that happening for us, but with faith and the proper help we were successful. And for nine months we were looking forward to meeting our little girl. She was born on the Wednesday of Holy Week, and as far as we were concerned that day our Easter came early.
Unfortunately, her delivery and the postpartum didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked. She was born three weeks early due to complications with the pregnancy contributing to some hypertension for me… quite possibly preeclampsia that went undiagnosed and ultimately ignored. The doctors tried to induce me, but as my contractions were increasing her heart rate was decreasing, so I ended up having a c-section. From the time I was admitted to the hospital I started encountering pain in the back of my neck, and during postpartum I had a really bad headache. Initially, I thought it was just a kink in the neck and a headache related to hormones and fatigue. For the first three weeks of motherhood I was trying to manage the symptoms and take of my child.
I tried everything I knew to do like massage and stretch my neck; I tried to get rest when I could, try eating, tylenol, hydrate, etc to manage the headaches that were only getting worse. It felt like a a knife was cutting through my skul. In the third week, I was breastfeeding and handed my daughter to my husband so we could go for a buggy ride. As he was strapping her in, I found myself unable to move my right arm. At first, I thought my arm had fallen asleep due to how my daughter was laying on my arm, but then my right leg went numb, and the right side of my face started to droop.
Instead of going out for the buggy ride, we went to the ER, and the catscan showed two blood clots in my head. I was having a stroke! I was a brand new mother having a stroke. I was in the ICU for a week, my first Mother’s Day.
For six months, I went through physical therapy and occupational therapy to regain the use of my right side. I noticed that while I didn’t enjoy my reason for PT and OT, I did enjoy the process. Initially, I thought it was weird, but my husband reassured me that I like working out, so I began looking ways to integrate my love for the Catholic faith with fitness– building that bridge between the body and soul of the human person.
We went through some transitional periods, even during the time of COVID and found myself staying busy with prayer and still trying to progress with the exercises I got from the PT and OT to continue building my strength post-stroke.
I eventually found professional development opportunities to move towards this new desire the Lord placed on my heart. The two most profound opportunities were my certification through NASM and ongoing training with Metanoia Catholic, a Catholic Coaching business. The other key factor for my own development was my own personal trainer. The combination of both my coaches in Metanoia Catholic and my own fitness trainer enabled me to get more clarity on what I wanted to do with my life.
Metanoia Catholic provided me with some coaching skills and equipped me to do so with integrity of the Catholic faith. My trainer helped me to achieve some of my own fitness goals and became a great mentor for learning how to train other people. And in time I’ve been able to establish a sturdier foundation and stronger bridge with integration of the whole person- body and soul.
It’s been three years since I embarked on my own mission, my own call as the Catholic Fitness Coach, and I still seek out Metanoia Catholic human formation and my trainer for fitness advice for myself and my clients. I’m of the opinion that it is valuable to stay connected with mentors and experts in your respective faith for your own personal and professional development.
I’ve been training/coaching clients in person and online and I find joy in knowing I’m doing what God put me on this earth to do. While it hasn’t reached full fruition I’m in my calling. I know that because it gets me out of bed in morning, I’m happy, and I enjoy it. Coach Mike Krzyzchewski once said that if you like what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. I take it one day at a time and am getting the clarity I’m looking for along the way.