I’m Shell.

I found my way into fitness after spending my teens and early adulthood stuck in that miserable no-(wo)man’s-land of movement-as-punishment. Exercise was something you did to your body because there was something wrong with it.

It took me a long, rabbit-hole route to discover that fitness could be something else entirely.

Training can be a way to get to know your own body. To find out what it’s capable of, get better at using it and make it stronger. It can give you more options in your life. It can be challenging and absorbing and satisfying. And, when you do it alongside other people, it can be a place to belong.

That’s the fitness I’m interested in.

I’ve spent years learning about bodies and movement — through kettlebells, strength training, conditioning, yoga, hand-balancing, running, swimming and ballet, alongside the certifications and qualifications that let me put all of that knowledge to useful work. I have an ADHD-fuelled ability to disappear down rabbit holes about movement, and I don’t think I’m ever going to be finished learning about it.

But none of that is really the point.

The point is what happens when I put what I know together with your body. When you start to understand how it works. When something that felt impossible becomes possible. When you realise you’re stronger than you thought you were. When training stops being another thing you’re supposed to do to yourself and becomes something that’s simply part of your life.

And I think good training deserves to be taken seriously.

Not seriously seriously. We can talk nonsense, make friends, complain about whatever I’ve written on the board and spend an unreasonable amount of time discussing which kettlebell we’re going to use. The gym doesn’t need to become your whole life.

But what we do there should be worth doing.

I don’t think women need exercise watered down, dressed up or made more palatable. I don’t think a workout is good simply because it made you sweaty or tired. I don’t think you need to be punished into fitness, either.

I want training to be thoughtful and progressive. I want you to learn things. I want you to practise, get better, get stronger and discover what your particular body can do. I want there to be a reason for what we’re doing — even when we’re laughing while we do it.

Maybe that’s the distinction: take the training seriously, without taking fitness culture terribly seriously.

I love being in a gym, particularly with women, creating that kind of space. Somewhere you can train properly, be interested in your body rather than at war with it, and share the whole thing with other people.

Fitness solely to change the way you look is ultimately empty fitness, yet it’s the sole driver of most fitness aimed at women.

“Interest in, and enjoyment of, how your body feels” is the simplest way to explain the “results” of what I ask you to do in my fitness space and take beyond it into your lives.

My training methodology covers 5 Principles:

Core, Tension, Muscle, Movement, Breathing.

You can read about them here.

I started Juno Fitness to create a  fitness space where women of all movement backgrounds can access a proper strength and movement training programme to ensure ongoing, tangible fitness progress, whilst also having the benefit of a supportive social community. Using the hugely accessible, scalable (and fun!) tools of kettlebell and callisthenics (bodyweight) movements, I lead and support women to lift and move safely and strongly, making week-to-week progress both physically and confidently.

Our bodies are evolved to exercise. Modern life means that we have to invent reasons to exercise – that’s what fitness is; the present-day equivalent of having to chase your dinner or move a load of rocks out of the cave you want to sleep in!

When you consider it that way, fitness becomes less of an obligation and more of an opportunity to connect with and release the strong, resilient body that’s written into your DNA.

By focusing on strength and capability, building muscle and understanding our bodies, women can take control of the story that we’ve been told about taking up less space in the world.

Because women can never be too strong in a world that’s trying to keep us down.