Interview by Kaili Brooks • Photo by Hilary Nichols
As an accomplished athlete, real-food advocate, and wellness guru, Hoffman seeks to serve the whole person with her unique fitness philosophy.
Kaili Brooks: How did you enter into the fitness world? Were you always interested in fitness?
Lauren Hoffman: I’ve always been interested in everything. I knew from a young age that moving my body was a tool that is very effective at managing my feelings and helping me think. I’ve always been an athlete, starting with climbing trees and being outside. That [interest] turned into organized sports like lacrosse and snowboarding. Everything I did was at the extreme. I had to race; I had to win. I was obsessed with how to optimize peak performance in everything I did—but I was never taught the other pieces of the puzzle. I was never given good information about nutrition or how to move. No one taught me how the body works, I was just told how to win. After I had my oldest daughter, I wanted to perform the way I used to, but the exercises I was given by the gym trainer didn’t feel right. I was running and running and running, but nothing was changing. Because of this, I realized something was wrong with the system, something wasn’t true. It felt like there were all these pieces and I couldn’t figure out how to put them together in a single system. It was around this time I found the Chek Institute and bought his Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level One, and things were connected and related as a single path forward. Everything is everything; it’s all the same from different perspectives. Focusing on strength taught me a new way to focus on my goals. Rather than having a single system that everyone fits into, I had to create an organization that fits into each client.
Kaili Brooks: So that realization is when you started Forged Barbell?
Lauren Hoffman: I was a CrossFit coach for 20 years, and I was the technique and form person. I would watch a client walk in and see exactly what they needed, but I would have to give them what was on the board. I wouldn’t do that, but I would get into trouble because I wasn’t following protocol. This just kept happening. I started calling what I was doing Forged Barbell but was renting space in someone else’s gym. I was only training individuals, but I realized a fitness revolution couldn’t occur in a vacuum: we needed to be a team; we needed to have a bigger impact. When I left that space, it was sink or swim. I could go back to my garage, or rent another space and run into more ideological headbutting, or I could find space that was mine and a team that believes what I believe in. I had no money, just a dream of a space and the pieces just fell together. All of a sudden, I had a space and had to design a gym. It truly takes a village to make this all work. That was July of 2018, and by October we had memberships. The universe only says yes.
Kaili Brooks: What is the basis of your personal training philosophy?
Lauren Hoffman: I like doing what works. I have no boundaries, judgements, or restrictions. What works for one person with their goal is not going to work for another person with the same goal. If we look at it in terms of gap analysis, where are you now? Where do you want to go? What do you need to get there? What’s stopping you from getting there? Each person is a new challenge. Once we meet one goal, it’s dream time! What’s the next goal? We’re going to celebrate the win, rest, and reset. It all has to be integrated. If you’re not well fed, you can’t think or plan clearly and you’ll feel overwhelmed. There are all these fitness paradigms from yoga to strongman, how do they all fit together? The art form is knowing when to pull from where to give someone the next step.
Kaili Brooks: What sets Forged Barbell apart?
Lauren Hoffman: Our system is built around each individual member and their unique goals. We have a gym fitness program, but which pieces each member is prescribed is individualized based on their current status, their goals, and what they enjoy. What kind of strength do you want or need? We work with each member to ensure their fitness work is getting them what they want both in group settings and one-on-one. Obtaining holistic strength must start with a holistic approach. Lifting weights alone will never address the barriers to health. The gym’s program is balanced, but many people have imbalances resulting in low back pain, bunions, etc. These people benefit more from an unbalanced program! We give them full orthopedic assessments to determine the root cause and respond using exercise and lifestyle to relieve these symptoms.
Kaili Brooks: How do you define holistic strength?
Lauren Hoffman: Holistic strength means fully integrated. We could talk about the cellular level, the organ level, the whole body. We could talk about the energy systems and muscle fiber types. The physical, emotional, and spiritual. We have to integrate it so that everything is happening all the time, all at once. That’s how we manifest everything we want. You have all these spiritual masters ignoring their bodies and the high-level football athlete making millions eating poorly and getting ‘Me Too’d’ because they’re not integrated. You have to make it so that you aren’t creating chaos in one part of your life and success in another… and a squat is never just a squat. It’s medicine. We have to see if it’s the medicine we need.
Kaili Brooks: There’s a common sentiment today that everyone should be lifting weights. What’s your opinion on that?
Lauren Hoffman: They shouldn’t! The majority of the fitness industry tells you what to do and cheers you on but doesn’t tell you how or why. They give you a fitness experience that feels good, but you don’t know where you’re going. Is it leading you to a true spiritual awakening? Weights strengthen the body, muscles, fascia, and neurological communication. It’s a way of doing work that’s simple and well defined. Emotional strength is harder. I have to be able to stabilize myself in my truth. A deadlift can help me do that, it’s a tool to give me a thicker shell. As long as I’m integrated. To assume that everyone should be lifting weights is to assume that everyone should be getting stronger. That’s not necessarily true. You need a stable foundation to be able to put weights on and the willingness to take ownership over your own journey.
Kaili Brooks: You also offer nutrition coaching. What is ancestral nutrition?
Lauren Hoffman: As soon as you put a name on something it has artificial boundaries. A diet has all the judgements and arbitrary constrictions. We’ve evolved over thousands of years, and we used to eat what the Earth provided us. There have been some big shifts in that. Our bodies have evolved to gain energy from what we put into it. Thinking of food as a source of energy and information, it needs to come from something real. Real soil, real sun. If you start from this foundation, it starts your baseline. Throw out the stuff that causes harm. Are you eating as a sacred practice and honoring the process of bringing energy and information into you with the intention and time you need to do it? Universal statements don’t work, which is why finding your specific owner’s manual is important. The body is an onion with many layers. It’s never just about how much weight is on the barbell.
Forged Barbell is located at 251 Jackson Plaza Suite C, Ann Arbor, MI 48103. If you’d like to learn more about Forged barbell call (313) 410-3696, email forgedbarbella2@gmail.com, visit forged-barbell.com, or find them on Instagram @forgedbarbell. For more from Lauren, find her on Instagram at @holistic_strength_coach.
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