Caitlin Jones is a certified personal trainer, fitness coach, health and mindset coach and entrepreneur. She helps busy professionals create lean, toned physiques without cardio or crunches. With nearly a decade in the fitness industry, she has helped hundreds of clients achieve their specific goals. Her online course, Ditch Crunches Forever, helps people to lose weight, tone up and reveal the sexy abs they have always wanted. Caitlin is also a professional dancer who has expanded her teaching specialties to function and strength, boxing and cycling classes. Whatever the methodology, Caitlin delivers to each class, her highest energy, excellent musicality, and a true love for helping others feel their best.
Vincent Ferguson:
But before we talk about your online course, Ditch Crunches Forever and how you help clients to build lean physiques without doing cardio and crunches… I really want to hear about that… But let’s talk about your journey into health and fitness. Where did it all begin for you, Caitlin?
Caitlin Jones:
Almost on accident. I was in college. A bunch of girlfriends of mine, loved Zumba, and there was a group of instructors in the Pittsburgh area who did a class at a bar. But during the day, it was this party atmosphere, this party vibe. It was four different instructors throwing a 90 minute dance party up on stage. Huge dance floor, the lights, the music was so loud, it was awesome.
Caitlin Jones:
And some folks would go on to happy hour or dinner afterward. And it just made the most fun Wednesday night. So I started going to that with some friends. It was contagious. It was seriously a movement. Like the group of us that started loyally going to this class every single week grew to about 10 or 20 women from my sorority, going every week. Like no lie, we’d bring 20 people. It was crazy.
Caitlin Jones:
So it was just a lot of fun and I had grown up dancing. So it wasn’t that much longer until the instructors sort of noticed I was doing a good job picking up the choreography. We built a relationship before and after class just chatting. They knew I was a big fan and they were like, “You’re not too bad at this yourself. Have you ever thought about getting Zumba certified?
Caitlin Jones:
So I did. I was pretty quickly and easily able to get a job teaching a few classes each week on my college campus. So, it was very organic. I have this dance background. And then my first foray into the fitness world was teaching dance cardio, happened very naturally. From there, I went to New York City and I did start working as a professional dancer. And that’s when the teaching dance cardio thing started to become more of a problem.
Caitlin Jones:
It was actually way too much on my feet and way too much on my joints. To be performing all night, Taking dance classes and going to auditions all day and then be jumping around and shaking my hips some more in between, at these dance cardio classes. It was just way too much on my body.
Caitlin Jones:
So, I started to get more interested in weightlifting, being that’s lower impact on the joints. Started teaching in a few different studios, more along those lines. And that’s when I really felt some incredible changes in my body. Was from lifting weights. So that’s really where we focus a lot nowadays.
Vincent Ferguson:
Very interesting. Did you have any weight issues growing up?
Caitlin Jones:
I did not. I know I didn’t have any issues managing my weight. Coming from the dance world, it’s a little bit the opposite problem. It’s more like struggling with body image and feeling like you need to lose weight or be thinner. I definitely had my hardship there when I was 14, 15. I had an eating disorder for pretty much the full year. For reference, I’m about five foot seven now and 145 pounds. And at my lightest, I was 99 pounds, at my sickest.
Caitlin Jones:
So with the help of a therapist and just a more positive outlook on food and exercise, I was luckily able to get out of that really dark place and in a way I’m so grateful that I had that experience when I did, because eight years later in the professional dance world, that’s really, when I was getting a lot of feedback about my body.
Caitlin Jones:
I had a lot of other people telling me how I should look. And I had already sort of done a lot of this work of like, I had already gone to that really dark place. I was like, “You know what? No one’s ever going to make me feel like that again. Like I am enough! I am worthy! I’m not going to starve myself to reach any insane aesthetic outcome.” And so in a way I’m really glad I had that resilience with me in the professional dance world already.
Vincent Ferguson:
And I understand you actually moved to New York in 2014, correct?
Caitlin Jones:
Correct.
Vincent Ferguson:
So where are you originally from?
Caitlin Jones:
I’m from the Pittsburgh area. Born and raised. Went to high school here. Went to college here. Really the only places I’ve ever lived is Pittsburgh and New York. Even as we speak, this is December, 2020. We’re about nine months into this coronavirus journey. And even for the last nine months, it’s been bouncing back and forth between my New York apartment and different places in Pittsburgh, to spend more time with family.
Caitlin Jones:
So now that I’m building an online business, it’s sort of the first… The light bulb is going off in my head where I’m like, “Oh, I can actually live somewhere other than Pittsburgh and New York City if I would like to.” And so I’m starting to look at those options.
Vincent Ferguson:
Wow. Really? Awesome. And before we talk about the online business, I want to step back for a second because I run a nonprofit organization for kids called Body Sculpt of New York. And one of my community partners are the Brooklyn Nets organization.
Caitlin Jones:
Phenomenal.
Vincent Ferguson:
And I understand that you worked with the Brooklyn Nets.
Caitlin Jones:
Yes. Yes, I did.
Vincent Ferguson:
Tell me about that experience.
Caitlin Jones:
It was phenomenal. I really enjoyed dancing there. I danced as a Brooklyn Net dancer for one year. After my time there, I transitioned to coaching for the Nets kids dance team. They have a very, very talented kids dance team. So for three years I was part of the assistant coaching staff.
Caitlin Jones:
I think the best part of being associated with the Net franchise is dancing for them in particular. Really any New York or L.A. team, when it comes to the NBA or the NFL, obviously these teams are all over the country. But when you’re in either New York or L.A. the dance scene there really converges with the professional sports scene.
Caitlin Jones:
So, we are working with famous choreographers to put our routines together for these 90 second halftime routines, t-shirt tosses, whatever it may be. That was really the value in being with a team like the Nets.
Caitlin Jones:
And I mean, the Brooklyn Nets have such a unique style. When I was on the team, it was their second year being in Brooklyn versus New Jersey. So, with their new rebrand and everything, we were on the forefront of some really cool trends in the space. Doing different styles, doing Latin dancing and Caribbean dancing.
Caitlin Jones:
And we would do like a traditional Chinese dance and bring in a traditional Chinese choreographer to do that. Every dance has a theme, a prop, a costume. The production value was just so high in a way that only New York City can do it. In a way that only Brooklyn can do it.
Caitlin Jones:
And it was phenomenal to really be seen as these trendsetters in the space. And to this day, I’m the biggest fan of the Brooklyn Nets. They still put on a show every single time, and it’s amazing to watch.
Vincent Ferguson:
I’m glad to hear that. I too am a fan. How did you go from cheerleader to personal trainer?
Caitlin Jones:
Yeah. It really came with the… Going back to dancing, dancing, dancing all the time my first two years in New York. It’s just a lot on the joints and I have a history of stress fracturing the ball of my right foot, which has been an ongoing struggle. And also, I’m grateful for it, because it taught me that you can get an incredible full body workout without your feet ever leaving the floor.
Caitlin Jones:
And that, you mentioned in the introduction Vince, about how I sort of promise my clients, “You can get lean and toned without cardio and without crunches.” So I really come from this place of when I was in the professional dance world and I’m getting all this feedback, whether it was from my coaches on the Brooklyn Nets or from various casting directors or agents, everyone’s kind of saying the same thing, which is like lean is in right now. Abs are a trend right now. We sort of need more abs.
Caitlin Jones:
And it’s kind of funny because trends change with time, but it has nothing to do with true health and wellness, right? This is purely an aesthetic. Nowadays, it’s sort of like for women, it’s all about like the booty and everyone wants to grow the glutes. Right? And we’ve sort of seen that shift from more of a small waist and defined abs to really your butt being like the thing that everyone wants.
Caitlin Jones:
And yes, strong glutes are important for a healthy, strong body. A strong core is important for a healthy, strong body. But these aesthetic focuses, it’s totally based on people’s opinion, then it changes with the time. So I really want abs, right. Because everyone’s telling me I need them. And I’m thinking, “Okay, well, I’m going to do crunches and sit ups and twists.” That’s going to help tone the midsection.
Caitlin Jones:
And I’m going to do a ton of cardio to burn a ton of calories, to hopefully shed fat so that you can see all of the definition that I’m creating in my abs. What that did was it caused undue amounts of stress in my body. It was way too much cardio. I think when you count up all of the dance practices, I was going to, all of the dance classes I was taking. The auditions I was going to plus the classes I was teaching. Plus, walking around New York City is a cardio workout in and of itself. I was doing moderate or higher intensity cardio for like 20 hours a week and I wanted to die.
Caitlin Jones:
Something had to give. So sort of, because I was just exhausted and burnt out and I couldn’t keep running and I couldn’t keep dancing and biking and all the things I was doing. And my foot was acting up. I was starting to have some concerns raised about having another stress fracture in my foot.
Caitlin Jones:
I was like, “Okay, feet need to stay on the ground. What can I do?” And I started getting more into weights and it was just radical, the change I saw in my body after three to six months of three times a week, strength training, full body, functional fitness.
Caitlin Jones:
I wanted to just shout from the rooftops like, “Hello! This is probably the thing a lot of you are neglecting because the cardio and crunches approach seems logical.” It would make sense, but now I understand more why the weights work. I got my personal training certification so that I can teach others this methodology.
Vincent Ferguson:
Very interesting. So you created an online program called Ditch Crunches Forever. All right. So now this is what you’re talking about. So you don’t do as much cardio now. You don’t even do crunches.
Caitlin Jones:
Correct. I never do crunches. I never do sit-ups. I never do Russian twists. And my abs are easily the most defined and visible they’ve ever been in my life. Cardio is an interesting definition. So I teach my clients that cardio is anything which elevates your heart rate above resting, super intensity. So we can focus on doing full body strength training exercises. Think squats, pushups, dead lifts, bent over rows, or pull ups. Something pulling, right?
Caitlin Jones:
We might throw in a few burpees for a few sets of 30 seconds. And by actually just minimizing rest in between these exercises, the client or the person in question performing the exercises is going to experience an elevated heart rate. So it’s not that I’m saying there is nothing worthwhile about elevating your heart rate. It’s more that I think someone who wants to lose weight is likely, potentially overvaluing cardio, in their entire approach.
Caitlin Jones:
If they’re spending a lot of time doing cardio and then not really enough time doing strength training, which I would argue for minimum, minimum, two sessions per week, full body. Then it’s going to be really hard to gain any momentum. We need muscle on the body. It looks nice.
Caitlin Jones:
When people say they want to look lean and they want to look toned, they want to build muscle. They want visible muscles. And also, it helps us move through life pain-free. It makes everyday activities much easier, such as just simple things. Walking up and down hills, moving your groceries around, picking up your kids or your nieces, or your nephews or whatever it may be.
Caitlin Jones:
And having muscle increases your metabolism. So it’s actually going to help you burn more calories at rest. And I think that’s what really hits home for most of my clients is, you can research different types of workouts. What’s the most effective, what burns the most calories until you’re blue in the face. But we’re at rest most of the time. We are a sitting society, unfortunately. We’re a mostly sedentary society.
Caitlin Jones:
So I’m not really trying… I don’t want a client to come to me… I’m not going to tell them, “Hey, you’re going to burn more calories with me than you are with the other guy or the other girl or the other trainer. What I’m going to do is I’m going to help you put some really healthy, nice looking, good to have for all sorts of health reasons, muscle on your body. And what that’s going to do is it’s going to help you burn calories when you’re not in the gym. So that you don’t get stuck in this endless cycle, this endless loop of more and more and more cardio to lose weight and then even more cardio to sustain it.” Because the second I stop running seven days a week, the weight just comes back on. We really want to break that cycle. And I know that strength training is the way to do it.
Vincent Ferguson:
Would you say your training is also partially high-intensity interval training, as well?
Caitlin Jones:
So high intensity interval training has been… How do I put this? There’s several different types of workouts out there, that claim to be high intensity interval training. Some of which are Tabata approach. Some of which are just the bootcamp. That’s very difficult, very challenging. What is an interval? It’s some amount of work interspersed with some amount of rest. So, don’t get me wrong. The programs that I write for my clients absolutely do incorporate intervals of various types.
Caitlin Jones:
I would say with regards to intensity, I take a holistic approach at my client’s entire life, right? There are all sorts of stressors that goes on in a person’s life, of which fitness is one. And also, sleep, and how well someone is sleeping is another. Their work, their relationships, their financial situation. COVID was a huge stressor for a lot of people.
Caitlin Jones:
All of these things affect our cortisol levels. Now, if someone is sleeping eight hours a night, pretty set in their career, in very happy, fulfilling relationships, eating enough and their cortisol is generally low or low to moderate, then they’re someone who can handle high intensity movement. Whether we’re dubbing it high intensity interval training or not. They can handle a higher intensity, longer bouts of training. And that will work just fine for them. And that will accelerate their results.
Caitlin Jones:
Some folks come into the gym and they hear that high intensity interval training is the best workout, burns the most calories. And it’s how they should be spending their time. But if this person is sleeping, six hours a night, on their computer answering emails late into the night. Maybe they’re under eating, right? Because they really want to lose weight. And they’re really committed. But the lack of sleep is increasing their cortisol. Their boss is increasing their cortisol. Under eating is actually potentially increasing their cortisol.
Caitlin Jones:
And now I haven’t even gotten into daily hormonal fluctuations of cortisol. Monthly hormonal fluctuations if this is a woman or a woman identifying person, whose hormones follow 28 day cycle, which also affects cortisol. High intensity is not for everyone. That’s another myth I’d really like to bust, because it could be counterproductive if we’re not taking a holistic approach to wellness and therefore cortisol. And we’re feeling like, “Oh, high intensity every day. More is more.” More is not always more. Sometimes less is more. And sometimes less intensity is going to bring you closer to your goals faster, by managing your cortisol.
Vincent Ferguson:
Nice. Now, do you work out of a gym?
Caitlin Jones:
Currently, oh my gosh. I would love to. Right now what with local guidelines and what not, I work totally digitally. It’s really incredible space. It’s been a learning experience, an overall positive one, learning how to build and maintain relationships with my clients without the in-person component.
Caitlin Jones:
I miss it, of course. I miss training face-to-face. I miss teaching to a packed room of people. It’s just not exactly potentially a safe option right now. So, I think in the future, I’d love to settle on some hybrid of online and in-person, because they both have their advantages.
Vincent Ferguson:
Definitely. Now, in regards again, to your program, Ditch Crunches Forever, how much of it relies upon diet?
Caitlin Jones:
Hmm. So I actually have two sort of signature programs here. Ditch Crunches Forever is a free mini course. Anyone who’s listening to this show right now, if you’re interested in any of the methodologies, I just discussed, Why strength training over cardio? Where does cortisol sort of play a part into all of this? I highly recommend taking Ditch Crunches Forever. Like I said, totally free. Can usually be found at the link in my Instagram bio @Caitlin Jones.
Caitlin Jones:
So, Ditch Crunches Forever is just a three part mini series. In the first-video, we go over metabolism, how building muscle affects metabolism. Why don’t you need crunches if you want abs and what do we sort of replace them with? So there’s a 20 minute instructional video answering all those questions. There’s two follow along workouts to pick from. One is entirely body weight. One is with dumbbells.
Caitlin Jones:
So whether you have equipment or not, you can participate. And then the third sort of the last video is really, “How do we take what we learned and how do we apply it to our training in all sorts of environments using these concepts.” There’s also a downloadable PDF. It’s about 30 different exercises that will strengthen your core without doing a single sit up, cardio or crunch. These are effective exercises proven by science and approved by me to work for building a lean toned stomach.
Caitlin Jones:
Now, the more in-depth program that I offer, Fitness Fluency, that’s a 12 week total life transformation. And of course, Vince, we do talk about nutrition in Fitness Fluency. I take a very… What’s the best way to explain this? For me, nutrition is all about abundance. It’s all about the steps that we do take, the foods that we do eat, the foods that we do include.
Caitlin Jones:
And I don’t really like to cut out entire food groups or ban any foods for my clients. Because the second I tell someone I’m working with, “Hey, by the way, those cookies… I know you love chocolate chip cookies, but for eight weeks, we’re going no cookies.” All that client can think of when she walks out of a conversation with me is, “Cookies, cookies, cookies. Darn it, Caitlin said, no cookies for me. I can’t do this.”
Caitlin Jones:
We sort of start to take this all or nothing mindset. So I really prescribe habits for my clients. We’ll do a three-day photo journal. For three days they just take pictures of whatever they eat. They upload it to a shared photo journal that I have access to.
Caitlin Jones:
At the end of three days, we sort of work our way up the health pyramid. I personally believe and prescribe that the foundation of any healthy diet is an abundance of colorful plants. Is someone’s diet colorful? Because it’s not just macronutrients, fats, proteins and carbohydrates that matter. It’s also vitamins minerals, antioxidants, fiber. All of these wonderful micronutrients that keep us young, that prevents us from getting sick. That give us energy. That make our skin and our hair appear healthy. So we start there.
Caitlin Jones:
Now we sort of then move on to protein. The first macronutrients I really check for is, is a client getting enough protein? So usually just with those two sort of big check marks alone will create habits. I might say to a client, “Hey, all I need you to do… The only thing you’re going to change for us this week is at your lunch every day, I don’t want you to change a thing, except I want you to add two cups of leafy greens.”
Caitlin Jones:
This could be on the side of a sandwich. This could be you’re having a rice dish or a noodle dish. Whatever it is, it’s small enough that you can commit to it. Maybe it’s a handful of baby carrots in the afternoon. Maybe it’s a few cups of berries with your oatmeal in the morning. If you’re having plain oatmeal, I might say, “Hey, I want a cup of berries on there, or maybe an apple, if it’s the fall and berries aren’t in season. But let’s get some fruit going in there.”
Caitlin Jones:
So we sort of just layer on these really small changes. Small, but consistent. I need something that my client is confident they can maintain 80 to 90% of the time. Because we are what we repeatedly do. And if we try to change too much all at once, we’re in this all or nothing mindset, the second someone slips up, they go, “Oh, I can’t do it. I’m a failure. I’m just going to go back to my old way of eating.” And then that’s really the cycle again, that we’re trying to break here.
Vincent Ferguson:
Nice. Now this is part of the 12 week program, correct?
Caitlin Jones:
Correct. Yeah. So Fitness Fluency, we absolutely dive into nutrition because… I’m so glad you asked that, Vince. Fitness isn’t really necessarily the place to start, if you’re looking to make a radical change to your health and wellness. I actually teach that sleep is where most folks should be starting. If you’re not getting at least seven hours a night, we really need to start there. Sleep is just nature’s medicine. It’s an incredible thing.
Vincent Ferguson:
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your fitness business?
Caitlin Jones:
It’s a totally different landscape. Completely different. Prior to COVID, I was spending a lot more time in a group fitness environment. So I worked for someone else. I taught for a cycling company, but in terms of clients, my reach was, no exaggeration, in the thousands.
Caitlin Jones:
Over a month’s time, I would have taught to thousands of unique riders just through those classes alone. My personal training business, that wasn’t a major focus of mine. I did have a handful of clients on the side, who were just friends or residual from earlier days where personal training was a larger focus of mine. But when COVID hit, everything entirely shut down. Pretty much anyone who was interested in cycling, got on the Peloton platform or on a more equally established platform such as that.
Caitlin Jones:
And my employer didn’t really have that same setup. So to be honest, I tried a lot of different things just to see what stuck. I did some bootcamps on Zoom. I did some dance cardio classes on Zoom. At one point, I was sort of teaching cycling class.
Caitlin Jones:
I had bootlegged a cycling methodology together, and you could do it on any bike. You could do it on a recumbent bike. That went on for about a month or two. And it was sort of the same thing. I wasn’t necessarily offering personal training at the start. I definitely wasn’t offering Ditch Crunches Forever, Fitness Fluency, but it was more people approaching me and really asking for what they wanted and what they needed.
Caitlin Jones:
And when enough people came to me and were like, “I’m looking for personal training.” I said, “Okay, I have this package.” We sort of arrive at something that they’re willing to pay and I’m willing to work with. And we go from there. After about my fifth client approaching me for training, I was like, “Okay, this is it.” This was all really effortless up until this point. So I think that this is probably the thing that works for me right now. And that’s where I started pouring my focus into.
Vincent Ferguson:
Nice. Nice. And as you said, this is something that you can do…. You don’t have to be in New York. You can be anywhere and conduct these online programs, right?
Caitlin Jones:
Yeah. It’s so cool. It’s honestly really cool. Because in this last year, I have spent more time with family than I’ve ever been able to do. And I can go to Mom’s house for like a week or two and then spend half a week over at my sister’s, helping babysit her kids.
Caitlin Jones:
And as long as I just take my computer with me, if I have a space that I can move in… I drive places now. I haven’t been flying anywhere. It’s all places within driving distance. I can bring a few kettlebells. As long as I have that pretty simple setup, it’s like, “I’m the business. I show up. I give the sessions. I program.” But so much of it is online. People would be surprised to see how much time I spend at my computer nowadays.
Caitlin Jones:
We’re educating on social media. That’s a big one. I’m keeping my online community engaged. I send out email blasts and I’m building out my website and I’m working on the backend and even accounting and insurance. There’s a lot more that goes into it than people realize. And it’s absolutely changed from the days of just show up, keep the class on the bike to a room of 70 people. Go home. That feels like archaic. It’s crazy. Crazy to think just nine months ago that that’s what I was doing.
Vincent Ferguson:
Where can my listeners find out more about Caitlin Jones and give us your social media handles. Everything we need to know about your programs and how we can reach out to you.
Caitlin Jones:
Absolutely. So my Instagram is just my name, no spaces, no underscores, no nothing. It’s Caitlin C-A-I-T-L-I-N Jones, as in keeping up with the Jones’s. It’s an amazing way to stay in touch. Really, everything that I have to say, everything that I have to share, Instagram gets it first.
Caitlin Jones:
Generally the link in my Instagram bio will lead you to Ditch Crunches Forever, my free mini video series. Oh, please, please message me if you’re trying to get access to Ditch Crunches Forever and you can’t find it, or you just want to say hi, or you have a specific question about your own nutrition, fitness, whatever it may be. I love expanding my online community and I will voice memo you back and forth until the day is done. Listening to where you’re at in your fitness journey and just purely asking how I can help. I would love to know. So please, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Vincent Ferguson:
Wow. Sounds really good. I’m sure you will hear from somebody. Caitlin Jones, on behalf of Body Sculpt of New York and Six Weeks to Fitness, I want to thank you for coming on my show today.
Caitlin Jones:
Of course, Vince. Thank you for having me. It was really an enjoyable conversation.
Vincent Ferguson:
To my listeners and readers, I truly hope this program was informative, encouraging, and inspiring, and that you will continue tuning in to our Six Weeks to Fitness podcast. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the show, please leave them on my Six Weeks to Fitness blog at http://www.sixweekstofitness.com or email me at Vince@sixweeks.com. Take care. Bye, bye.
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