Jenny Conlon meets fitness guru and founder of Paola’s BodyBarre, Paola Di Lanzo to find out how she came up with the dynamic concept.
I attended my first Paola’s BodyBarre class (PBB) in anticipation of meeting Paola, and it’s safe to say, I’m a convert. Not only does your body get worked to the core, but you can see and feel a difference after only a few classes. Seemingly, it lives up to the hype that surrounds it.
Paola filled me in on how her natural zest for fitness started at a very young age, on the other side of the world. “Growing up in Australia we were always in the great outdoors. We were fit – running from pillar to post in friends’ backyards, swimming, playing at the beach and surfing. We would be out getting ourselves dirty and hanging with all the surfers. I’ve always been a really active person, engaging in a lot of sport, ballet and gymnastics. You name it, I’ve played it. It’s always been in my blood.”
It took a few years in the business before Paola hit upon the idea of BodyBarre. “The concept did not come until much later. I originally studied to be a high school PE Teacher and health educator. But I found that I didn’t really like teaching high school children, so I got myself into personal training. All the way through university I was doing different courses – I did aerobics courses, gym instructing courses, and then ended up as a personal trainer, before flitting between personal training and my family business.”
It wasn’t until Paola hit British soil that she realised what fitness route she wanted to go down. “I moved to the UK in 1998. I was really just over here on a holiday and I got a job in Knightsbridge in quite a high-end gym. I worked there for two or three years, got some great clients and met my husband.” Continue reading…