Community Highlights: Meet Janine Sluder of Vagabond Personal Training

Today we’d like to introduce you to Janine Sluder.

Hi Janine, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I can’t say I’m one of those people who “just always knew” what they wanted to do. In reality, the path that has led me to where I am today is paved with a string of trial and error, course corrections, and just doing what I could to make ends meet. I was a high school drop-out who came from an abusive home and found myself pregnant at 20. I had been working odds-and-ends jobs with no real sense of purpose or direction with my life. I’ve always been free-spirited and loved working for the sake of working, so for the time being I found contentment with this lifestyle. But in 2011, I felt a shift when I accepted a position at a chiropractic office. It was there that I really began to tap into what made my heart tick. I fell in love with therapeutic patient care, the complexities of the human body and the joy of helping people improve their health. However, as much as I loved my job, within a couple of years, I had outgrown it and felt called to expand my scope of knowledge.

I went back to school and, in 2017, graduated with a BA in Kinesiology-Fitness & Health Promotion. THE PLAN was to go on to graduate school and earn my master’s degree in occupational therapy. However, during my work as a chiropractic assistant and then through an internship at a pediatric rehab, I witnessed firsthand the shortcomings of the current medical establishment and how federally unregulated insurance companies dictate the quality of care available for patients. I saw the struggle endured by those seeking the care they needed and how practitioners had to jump through hoops—or many times had their hands tied entirely—trying to get the coverage to meet the needs of their patients. Morally, this structure did not resonate with me.

Finding myself at another crossroads, I sought a way I might help others find healing and care without the restrictions set by self-interested third parties. The answer I found was to carve my own path in creating the vision I wanted to see. That following year I moved to Cave Creek, AZ, earned my NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and started my journey into personal training. There, I expanded my knowledge working alongside like-minded, ambitious and experienced mentors/colleagues and discovered a greater freedom working with clients of all ages and fitness levels to rehabilitate injuries, gain strength and mobility, and improve their overall well-being. As much as I loved the Sun Valley and the friendships built there, I felt homesick and embraced yet another shift as my family and I made a return to our beloved Colorado mountains.

Settled and assessing my next move, I knew I wanted to create my own space and further expand my vision. I sought to provide a service to clients that blended the value of personalized training and the corrective principles of chiropractic with the fun atmosphere and affordability of group classes. It was with this objective in mind that Vagabond Personal Training saw its inception.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have been many twists and turns along the way, and like so many others, the pandemic definitely brought some challenges to starting a new business. Just days before the world shut down—with a “go big or go home” attitude—I had developed a business plan that would’ve allowed me to hit the ground running. I had found the perfect little downtown space for my studio, was set to sign a lease and was ready to get to work. At the moment, it was discouraging, but in hindsight I view it as a blessing that opened up many new and unexpected opportunities. I was challenged to restructure my plan of action, start small and take a different approach. I bought only what equipment I needed to operate, remodeled space in my home to train one-on-one and began offering mobile services to other clients who sought in-home training. This gave me freedom to build my clientele and plan my next moves with minimal overhead costs as the community was slowly recovering. But as my clientele grew, there was the new challenge of schedule availability and efficiency—I was losing time in my day traveling from one client to the next and I began to feel the hit of rising gas prices.

Energetically, I also knew it wasn’t sustainable to stretch myself so thin and there was limited growth available within that structure. The time came to revisit finding a permanent studio space and opening up session times to multiple clients. I was fortunate to find a great location in the heart of downtown Mancos, but it didn’t come without its own set of obstacles. It had the space I needed but had been an old distillery that had sat vacant for several years and required a lot of cleanup and renovation. With enthusiasm and generous support from amazing friends and clients, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. It’s been a wild ride and there is always more to accomplish, but I am truly grateful for each of these challenges and the invaluable lessons they’ve taught me along the way. The journey has been better than I could have ever imagined.

As you know, we’re big fans of Vagabond Personal Training. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
With experience as both a chiropractic assistant and personal trainer, it was important for me to create a service for clients that offered the most value and took a holistic approach that expanded beyond strength training but also provided corrective intervention to improve posture and spinal health.

Training sessions at Vagabond are structured in a small group setting which cultivates a fun, social atmosphere and builds long-lasting friendships within the community. Unlike many other fitness classes however, instead of doing a workout of the day, clients get the individualized program design that best suits their goals, exercise & health history, and special considerations. One client may be focusing on building muscle as another focuses on maintaining a specific weight as they rehab an injury. Each workout is their very own. An additional benefit to opening sessions to train multiple clients is that it allows me to keep my rates affordable. Over the years, I’ve observed that when people run into financial hardships, one of the first things they cut from their budget are self-care expenditures during a stressful time when they could most benefit from it. I believe it is important that people have accessibility to positive health interventions and so that is always a big consideration in my business. To further expand on the personalization in program design, before a client even begins their training journey, we always start with a fitness and spinal assessment. During this assessment, insightful data is collected to evaluate and ensure I am creating workouts that not only focus on achieving client fitness goals but also work to correct posture, musculoskeletal imbalances and improve range of motion. In my opinion, this is one of the most important considerations in my training design that has such a positive impact on client success and overall quality of living.

What matters most to you? Why?
A healthy community.

I think one of the biggest takeaways from the last couple of years, at least for me, is how vital connection with others is to our well-being. I’m sure most of us can agree how devastating it was to be placed in isolation and separated from our loved ones, and as the world began to reemerge, the positive impact for us mentally and physically to reconnect. I consider myself fortunate to live in such an amazing community that even in times of confusion, divisive world views, fear, etc. there are so many amazing people in our area who don’t hesitate to come together to help one another. I think this is the key to what has made our community such a strong and special one.

Most importantly, though, we cannot overlook the importance of maintaining our health and building strong immune systems. If we don’t have our health, we don’t have anything, and we cannot have healthy communities without healthy individuals. This is the driving force behind what I do.

Contact Info:

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Image Credits
Durango Photography – Derek Martinez Patrick Mason