Personal Fitness Professional - January/February 2009 - (Page 28)

By Shelby Murphy Journey to Success is this year’s upgrade to what was previously called “Spotlight. In this revamped series, editor Shelby Murphy analyzes the path to ” the top of a particular ﬁtness professional and the key strategies you could emulate to achieve success. There isn’t much that Andrea Metcalf sets her mind to that she doesn’t get. A successful studio owner and ﬁtness personality for print and broadcast media, Metcalf has transformed the virtue of persistence from a strength to an art form. Take, for instance, how she got her weekday ﬁtness gig with the Chicago NBC aﬃliate, NBC5, for which she performed three-minute ﬁtness tip spots on the weekends. After she adapted to being on-air (having thrown up after her ﬁrst couple of spots), she noticed that the more prestigious weekday spot had an absentee host. She cold-called the president of NBC5 and, for some reason she can’t explain, his secretary put her through. She booked ﬁve minutes with him, Googled his name and found that his favorite food was pizza. Armed with a Chicago-style pie, Metcalf wound up spending 45 minutes pitching the president in the NBC5 lobby. She got the job. But Metcalf ’s venture into being a media personality doesn’t end there; she soon set her sights on the Today Show. For nearly a year, she envisioned herself on that set, and she wrote her intentions in her journal nightly. With experience hosting Healthy Living in Chicago and contributing as a ﬁtness JAN-FEB2009 · WWW.FIT-PRO.COM expert to NBC5, her demo tapes and consistent emails to producers eventually were noticed. So far, she’s done eight ﬁtness segments for the Today Show on topics ranging from summer ﬁtness tips to 10-minute holiday ﬁtness routines that can be done between wrapping Christmas gifts and decorating the tree. 28 The Long Way to the Top Don’t let her high-proﬁle success fool you, however. Andrea Metcalf, like all quality ﬁtness pros, has paid her dues. She began her ﬁtness career in 1983 as a group exercise instructor. She taught prechoreographed classes — an evolution of Jazzercise — at a local racquet club while she attended school at night. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from DePaul University as well as a K-12 Teaching Certiﬁcation for Physical Education and Health. Still teaching Group X and competing in national aerobics championships, she attended an NASM workshop. “My biggest set of knowledge to this day came in the weeks I prepared for the Mitch Simons and Tom Purvis weekend of NASM in Chicago,” says Metcalf. “This was when the test was ‘don’t come unless you know the origin and insertion of all the major muscle groups.’ It gave me real understanding of the integration and movement patterns of the body. I am still so thankful for that weekend workshop!” Metcalf began working at — and eventually left — a prestigious, big http://WWW.FIT-PRO.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Personal Fitness Professional - January/February 2009

Personal Fitness Professional - January/February 2009 Contents Letter from the Editor, Writers Ready to Rock the Podium What It Takes to Change Fitness Marketing Makeover Be Better Top Club Building a Base of Special Populations The Balancing Act Take Action! Nutrition Solutions Datebook Journey to Success New on the Market The Four P's Exercising Your Influence No More Pain in the Back!

Personal Fitness Professional - January/February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.