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Meet Batista Gremaud of Dr Fitness USA in Westchester

Today we’d like to introduce you to Batista Gremaud.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Batista. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My name is Batista Gremaud, I grew up in Switzerland on a small-town farm. My mother who owned a dance studio was a ballet dancer and my father were a well-known mime artist performer. I started dancing at the age of 3 and had an international career in ballet and flamenco dancing, touring the world. My travels landed me in Los Angeles, where I settled.

As many dancers do, I incurred injuries over the years through over exerting myself, performing even while injured, gone through radical diets to manage my weight. In lieu of all the dysfunctions that I have put myself through for the sake of my profession, regardless of how injured I was or how I felt, the show had to go on.

In 2008, approaching my fifties life began to get the best of me. My injuries became more chronic such as sciatica, frozen shoulder, knee and constant Achilles tendon impairment. I also started gaining weight uncontrollably regardless of diets.

My businesses were booming, I was teaching dance education to over 1000 children weekly in the Los Angeles unified schools and surrounding areas, providing regular entertainment with my professional dance company and running a successful dance studio in Marina Del Rey. I was by normal standards a successful woman, artist and business owner.

My physical condition though was getting worse by the day and I was experiencing a rapid loss of energy and well-being.

My years of studying various intuitive healing modalities taught me the power of manifestation, so I made the intention to reverse my seemingly hopeless deteriorating physical condition.

The very next day, I met Stephen Hercy AKA Dr Fitness USA. Instinctively I knew that this was my next step. I was very captivated by his unique approach to working out, which takes into consideration male and female energy principles as it relates to bodybuilding, in a holistic manner. Coming from a professional entertainer background where no pain no gain is the norm, hearing concepts like “never doing anything that is uncomfortable”, seemed not only peculiar but rather unrealistic! Besides, as a dancer with several injuries, weight lifting was by far the last thing in my consciousness. Nevertheless, I was desperate to heal myself and be out of pain, so I immediately joined Dr Fitness USA’s prescription strength-training program, which became a new starting point in my life.

During the first 20 minutes of the very first training session, I was leg pressing over 350 lbs. easily, with no discomfort whatsoever and regardless of my frozen shoulder, I was able to chest press 25 lbs. Dumbbells! Within a few weeks my injuries started to heal and within a few months I became pain free; my weight stabilized and continued to progressively go down; I got my body and my life back.

I learned about the power of building TRUE STRENGTH from grounding my body with advanced ergonomics applied to exercises, equipment, machines and correct postural alignment, which is so important for the brain-muscle connection necessary to relieve stress on the nervous system and heal the body.

This process of mind body connection fascinated me so much, that I spent the next several years studying and becoming a prolific researcher in physical health. This process leads me to become a No 1 Bestselling author of the book Feminine Body Design, empowering fitness for a pain free life, and “Posture4power”.

I made a natural career transition and am now the co-founder of the International Institute of Body Design (aka Dr Fitness USA) and the co-creator of the Feminine Body Design prescription strength training program, assisting women over 40 looks and feel 15 years younger by eliminating pain with Dr Fitness USA’s proprietary system.

Throughout this beautiful journey, Stephen Hercy (Dr Fitness USA), and I began to date, and later married.

After 10 years on this journey, at 58 years old, I am totally free of injuries, stronger, healthier and happier than ever before, with a wonderful husband to top it all.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Making a career transition at 50 years old from being an expert and accomplished entertainer with over 40 years in the dance field into a totally new area of expertise is not a small task. Not only did I have to learn everything from scratch in terms of strength training and becoming a certified personal trainer, Dr Fitness USA’s protocol and philosophy is so much outside the box and ahead of the times that it is not that easy to grasp and to parlay into a language that can be easily understood.
When a pioneer in any field brings forth new concepts, it is sometimes difficult to get the message across. Change does not always come easy and people are often stubborn and unwilling or unable to move from their parking spots in taking action towards achieving greater health in a way that is unfamiliar to them.

So, yes there has been many challenges along the road, but there has never being one moment of regret or hesitation in continuing to move forward. There is nothing more satisfying than to be able to completely transform someone’s life in this way. When a person gets in touch with their inner strength through the physical practice of lifting weight, to see their eyes light up, is a magical experience. To witness students, get out of pain and recover their health and their bodies, so that they can now get back to having a fulfilling life makes it all worthwhile.

Dr Fitness USA – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As the co-founder of the company, I look after content creation, educational outreach by writing articles and creating educational videos and social media posts. I am a frequent guest on radio shows and podcasts as an empowerment speaker to educate and inspire people about the importance of strength training as an anti-aging tool beyond yoga, Pilates and personal training.

My expertise in strength training includes structural realignment of the spine, getting rid of back pain without surgery and injury prevention. As a women’s health advocate, I teach busy women how to work out from a female perspective, to set boundaries and say no to doing things that are destructive or counterproductive, to overcome obstacles, eliminate pain and manage stress in their lives.

I am a visionary certified in hands on healing, intuitive readings and energy clearing, my long-time passions in quantum physique and metaphysical science inspires me to help people of all ages to achieve greater integration of body, mind and spirit through the practice of strengthening the body and the mind with the Body Design Formula prescription strength training coaching system as a vehicle to achieve wholeness of all elements of one’s self.

One of the things that sets us apart in the fitness industry is, we understand that you have within you a personal divine design. Our prescription strength training formulas involve taking an overview of the whole body, quite like the perspective of a yoga master; your body is not seen as separate pieces to be targeted for weight training, but rather as the reflection of the person you are as a whole.

Our revolutionary approach involves creating what we call “an individualized body design plan, which is a choreographed set of specific movement sequences with weights that will sculpt your body into its perfect form.” In this design, which takes us long hours of intense concentration and study of your musculoskeletal structure to create, we will correct those problems by removing the causative factors in overuse injuries and by developing those muscles that have atrophied from lack of use. This system will realign the posture caused by the effects of aging and, through realignment of the posture, your body will begin to transform itself into a new and shapely figure.

We care about the details. Through our expertise and thorough knowledge of physiology, we enable our students to tune into their feelings and get comfortable with weight training. Performing an exercise with a particular machine should be like stepping into a comfortable pair of shoes that fit your foot exactly as they should. Like shoes that don’t fit–that pinch, slip and slide–, machines can be uncomfortable because they are not the right size. Adjustments may need to be made. For example, special pads or particular ways of holding and moving the weighted parts of the machine need to be specified so that the machine fits your body. When a machine is adjusted to your body with advanced ergonomics, exercise can be properly and efficiently executed so that your body feels exalted, not stressed.

This enables our students to excel and go above and beyond any self-imposed limitations.
The first time a student does her program, she will immediately experience a 20% to 50% increase in her physical strength, which will make her feel successful. The positive feelings produced by this achievement will override the emotional inertia that made her feel unmotivated to work out and reawaken archetypal images of strength that remained dormant in the unconscious mind, which will lead to a greater ability to stay motivated and experience a higher level of self esteem

Another major difference is we teach process of performance vs. performance. Performance is male energy or Yang and is what personal trainers teach their clients to do: to try to do more than they can comfortably do by going for the pain. Performance oriented exercises is what women do when they work out on their own or with a trainer. By carrying over their masculine side from work to play, (Yang) they remain in their head, not grounded in their feelings (Female energy / Yin).

Process of performance is the opposite and is what a woman needs to find balance. It enables her to access her femininity; it also teaches her not to do things that are hurtful or uncomfortable while working out. This empowering process gets her out of her head and into her body, where she can be at ease with herself, where she knows what she’s doing, and is in control. It allows her to accesses her feeling side (Yin), thus making a stronger muscle-brain connection. As she learns her program, she understands what she needs to do in the gym and, over time, this knowledge will carry over to other areas of her life. She doesn’t have to be pushed to do anything; she will automatically do her best because it feels comfortable and she will become grounded in her body (Yin) and achieve overall Yin/Yang balance.

Only the Dr Fitness USA’s Body Design Formula prescription strength training system can bring about this positive change in physical / emotional balance through a very intimate brain-muscle connection that will lead to sustainable long-term results.

At Dr Fitness USA, we teach our students the joy of becoming masters of their own body, we teach independence vs. codependency, which is what the fitness industry is mostly about. We teach women to rediscover the fun of working out from a female perspective.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
When I met Stephen Hercy aka Dr Fitness USA, he only worked one on one with people, and the entrance ticket was quite high. Based on my personal experience and results, I had a vision to make this knowledge available to more people. After spending over 10 years researching and studying Dr Fitness USA’s philosophy and principles, I am excited and extremely proud of having being able to develop an online coaching system that enables me now to transform people’s lives worldwide, at a fraction of the price.

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Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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