No matter your age, Cynthia Ross wants you to know, you’re never too old to stay physically fit and active.
“Live Love Life” is her mantra for CP Ross Fitness, where Ross is training her clients at the Spa Fitness and Wellness Center behind Eutaw Shopping Center or the she-shed behind her quaint cottage-like home off McNeill Circle, which is just a skip and a hop from the Fayetteville Technical Community College campus.
“I love doing this,” Ross, 71, was saying Wednesday at her CP Ross Fitness studio.
She’s passionate about her 12 years as a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor. You can see the passion in her eyes. You can hear the passion in her voice. You can feel the passion in her soul.
“It’s very rewarding,” Ross said.
It’s not about getting you buff.
“It’s not about trying to pump something at the gym,” Ross said about clients ranging from age 50 and into their 80s. “It’s about a functional lifestyle. If you need to pick up something from a shelf, you need to be able to reach up. If you fall, you should be able to get yourself up.
“I have male and female clients. They want to come and be active. And they want balance.
“I’ve worked with clients with Down syndrome, dementia, cancer, and all types of health issues—men and women,” she said. “It’s seeing them get that confidence in themselves. They go from ‘I don’t think I could do this’ to ‘I think I can do this.’”
Exercise and fitness, Ross says, matters for all of us, and all the more as we age.
She recalls years ago, when working as an event planner and taking care of her aging mother took a toll on her own daily exercise routine.
“I could never find time to exercise,” Ross said. “I was really out of shape, because I didn’t make time for my health. The worst thing you can do is not make time for your own health. People don’t realize how important it is to make time for your health.”
‘Functional Mobility Training’
You’ll find Cynthia Ross working with group fitness classes Monday through Wednesday at the Spa Fitness and Wellness Center. Monday classes are from 11:45 a.m–12:45 p.m.; Tuesday classes from 11:30 a.m–12:30 p.m.; and Wednesday classes from 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
“They are 50 and 60 up,” she said.
When Ross isn’t at the spa, she’s training clients from 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at her at her CP Ross Fitness studio, where the she-shed is equipped with dumbbells, weighted bars, strength bands, a stall bar, a stability ball, slam balls, bender balls, a boxing punching bag, gliding discs and TRX suspension system, and all of the equipment, she says, “geared for functional mobility training.”
Ross swears by the TRX.
“It helps with balance, strength, and flexibility,” she said. “It’s based on your body weight.”
You can use the TRX for pullups, Ross says, to strengthen the upper body and shoulders. Use the TRX for squats to improve your “overall core and your quadriceps and flexibility.” And the TRX will help with those dreaded pushups for upper body strength.
“You are using a full range of body motions,” Ross said. “It’s all based on body weight principles.”
The TRX, she says, was developed 23 years ago by Randy Hetrick, a former Navy SEAL.
“He didn’t have a place to work out on a ship,” Ross said. “So, he made his first one out of a martial arts jiu-jitsu belt and parachute material. Twenty-three years later, and it’s a global entity. First responders use it. Athletes use it. Military use it.”
And many of Cynthia Ross’s clients use the TRX.
“One man had cancer seeking some strength training,” Ross said. “He was in chemotherapy. He was in remission. He is doing very well. His strength is good. The TRX has been very good to him.”
Ross says healthy eating habits, when it comes to staying fit, help, too.
“I believe in healthy eating,” she said. “You try to get to your 80-20. Fitness, if you look at it, is 80%” a healthy diet, “20% exercise.”
Still, it can be frustrating to turn down that tempting after-dinner dessert.
“If you want a piece of cake, eat it,” Ross said. “Just don’t eat it every day. But I don’t nag people about what they eat.”
A native of Florence, South Carolina, Cynthia Ross has called Fayetteville home for more than 25 years. She has worked as a mortgage broker and later for South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division as a fingerprint analyst before spending more than 20 years as an event planner here with her CP Ross Designs.
“I volunteered at the Arts Council [of Fayetteville-Cumberland County],” she said, “and that’s how I got into special events in 1998.”
She was a gifted event planner.
“But special events,” Ross said, “was a lot of organization.”
Epilogue
Today, Cynthia Ross has found her niche as a fitness instructor and personal trainer, and she’s heartfelt about it.
“I feel a connection with people with this,” she said. “I love doing this. People ask, ‘Don’t you want to retire?’ I say, ‘Because I love what I do.’ This is my heart. Live, love, live life and love the life you live.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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