Fitting Fitness into Life: Cassie Gagnon

From the moment I could walk, I was running (as my mother puts it). From a young age, I played multiple sports which continued through high school and into college.

In college I developed more extreme habits of binge eating and over exercising to work off all the take out to try and “stay skinny”. Any workouts were spent on the elliptical and using very few free weights. Though I had been active my whole life, I never really knew much about weight lifting - especially for women.

What I didn’t know was just how harmful my cycle of binging and exercising was to my body. After college, I moved 900 miles to be with the man of my dreams. When he learned about my habitual cycle, he pointed out how much I was harming myself. I felt embarrassed and disappointed that it had never clicked before. So I began researching how to put on weight in a healthy way, where I discovered lifting weights and tracking macros. That was over seven years ago and I haven’t looked back!

Starting a Family

My weightlifting workouts started at home with a very minimal “home gym” of 3lb, 5lb and 8lb dumbbells. After about six months I gained the confidence to go to a gym and work with a trainer to continue to gain weight healthily. For about 2 years, I did the 15 minute drive each way at 4:30am. It was a nice facility, but even getting there early you had to make sure you planned your workout to get through the machines or rack in a decent order or at all. When we were trying to start a family, I wanted to stay as active as possible (safely), but a daily 15 minute drive at 4:30am wasn’t going to be something I wanted to keep doing. So I began planning out my home gym! My number one requirement was that I could still park my car in the garage. The biggest challenge was finding a rack that would allow me to do so. I came across an ad for PRx and my problems were solved! I found a few other folding racks, but they all required a lot of work to set up and tear down after every use. The Profile Rack was a simple pull down to use and push up to store, which I knew I could do even towards the end of my pregnancy. I found a local company that sold it as well as all the other equipment I wanted (barbells, plates, storage solutions) and got it all in motion!

Less turned to More

My biggest fear of working out at home was that I’d have less motivation or it’d be too easy to just sleep in and not roll down stairs. But it has been FAR the opposite!

• I’m able to get a little more sleep because I save on travel time.
• Weather isn’t an issue because I don’t have to drive anywhere.
• I don’t have to wait for anyone to be done doing barbells curls in the squat rack ;)
• Now with our baby here I can for sure get my workout in during nap time.

If you have doubts about starting your home gym, whether for financial reasons or worried about space - I promise you will not be disappointed with PRx. Before I purchased, I did the math up front. Between gas and gym membership fees, I would break even on the purchases I made in less than a year! For more ideas on workouts and setup feel free to look me up on Instagram at @truthinstrength!