Sammy is a fresh new face to Beforeyouspeak, but she's quickly become a much loved member of the BYS Community. Sammy is a power house of an athlete, online coach & PT, emergency vet nurse and ALWAYS brings a good vibe!
Hi Sammy! We’re so excited, to have you as part of our BYS family, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Sammy and I’m an online coach, face to face PT, PT manager and an emergency vet nurse. I am a very busy lady but still find time to see friends/family and prioritise my clients.
I fill my Monday to Friday with online clients, seeing my face to face clients at the gym, managing the current PT’s at Genesis, and recruiting new PT’s - helping them closely with their first few months in the gym.
I absolutely love the outdoors and socialising with new people. I love trying new things and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone always. On weekends I spend my time catching up with friends, part running the mega run Brisbane on Saturdays and working at the emergency vet clinic on Sundays.
I train in the Sport Model project with Hattie Boydle currently, so I’m very strict on eating and training right now, but normally I train the way my body likes and intuitively eat. Listening to and learning about my body is something I’ve become very good at.
Was a career in fitness always where you wanted to end up? Or was there a particular moment that made you realise you had the passion and drive to make this a career?
I have always had a passion for fitness. As a child I was always participating in school carnivals, played competitive netball and started training in the gym after my second knee reconstruction.
I had always wanted to work with animals as a career, and I did do that working as an emergency vet nurse for 6 years until it became quite a stressful work place and I found my passion wasn't fully there anymore.
A little while after my second knee recon 18 months ago, I decided to look into a Cert 3 and 4 in Fitness. I had been training in the gym consecutively for 5 years and had a lot of passion for moving my body in whatever way made me feel fit. As I started studies, I knew within the first two weeks I had made a great decision, and fast forwarding a year on from graduating, I have a fully functional business. I’m a PT manager in my gym and I have started training with one of the worlds best, Hattie Boydle, in SMP project.
Every day I wake up excited and determined to help change peoples lives, just how fitness changed mine.
Anyone who follows you on Insta will know that you work hard with weight based training in the gym, but you can also pull out some pretty impressive flexibility and conditioning movements too (seriously, check out her insta, it’s unreal!). How do you find the two training styles compliment each other?
Absolutely incredibly. With mobility style training and flexibility as a part of my passion, I find you get a lot out of it in resistance training due to increased range of motion and/or being able to choose just how much range of motion you would like to use in each movement pattern.
As an all around high performer in and out of the gym, how do you prioritise your recovery to stay at the top of your game?
I listen to my body. After years of resistance training you build up resilience to some movements, but it’s amazing how trying a new exercise can really humble you.
My recovery looks like 2 rest days a week currently, and above all listening to my body, so on certain days that I have scheduled to train I will rearrange them if my muscles are too sore or have not recovered appropriately. I also do dynamic stretching prior to my leg workouts and am very conscious of my protein intake.
Sleep is a big one! I’m not perfect and can’t always have great sleep due to having so much going on, however I do notice a change in my performance in the gym if I haven’t slept well the night prior and again, this is where I listen to my body. I also occasionally do Ice baths. I hope to include them a bit more in my week to week training.
Tell us about the moment in your life so far that’s made you the proudest?
My most proud moment would have to be realising after being in this industry a very short time that I have found my passion, I have found my why, I have found my reason in helping women achieve their goals but more importantly realise their full potential.
Proud of myself for always putting myself outside of my comfort zone and making a career doing what I love.
It would also have to be my family and friends telling me that I seem so happy and am thriving in what I was born to do. This made me so proud of myself.
What’s your number one mind set tip for staying disciplined, and focused on achieving your goals?
There are so many tips and tricks for mindset as it’s such an important thing and no one statement will work for everyone, but mine would have to be just show up for yourself every day. If you show up each day you are proving to yourself you are capable and you are proving you can progress every day.
Another I will add is that you are your only competition, you should only ever compete with the person you were yesterday, never compare to someone else. You have no idea what that have gone through, what they are currently going through, or their genetic potential.
You just got back from a pretty amazing trip to Bali, tell us about the learnings you took from your time spent with The National Women's Fitness Academy over there?
Okay yes!!!! I’m so glad you asked this. So this was a quite incredible opportunity that I was able to collaborate with NWFA and I thank them so much for it. The most valuable learnings were more so about mindset, gut health and business tips.
I really enjoyed listening to mindset, and got into some science behind how the brain works and even as far as human behaviour around food/training, masculinity and femininity.
I was blown away with the passion coming from these amazing women, and how much passion I have, not for just training and nutrition for woman but their mindset behind it.
There was so much I could write but all in all, I had finished my degree a year ago and what I learnt on this trip just improved my knowledge which in turn helps my clients and that is what I’m most thankful for.
Tell us something that might surprise people to learn about you, any hidden talents or secret hobbies?
Well I love my handstands but I post all about them so that’s no surprise. I guess something that may surprise some people is that I really value my alone time. I love getting out and socialising obviously, but I get so excited to go to the beach/climb a mountain/train in the gym all by myself.
Hidden talent is I can tie an Allen's Lolly Snake into a knot with my tongue 😂
And last but not least, what’s your go to Beforeyouspeak brew!
Go to is a hard one but it’s either the Caramel Performance or Collagen Mocha! So hard to decide between the two!
Follow Sammy on Instagram: @sammykatefitness