Elemental Movement Training

Full disclaimer: I am a friend of Matt Matteucci but if not for that fact, I wouldn’t have been privy to his awesome style of personal training.
I first started training with Matt a few weeks ago. I knew that he had a pretty extensive experience as a personal trainer — both personally and professionally — in fitness and wellness. His background runs the gamut, from CrossFit, Olympic Lifting, sports coaching, kick boxing & martial arts, foundational gymnastics, and much more. I knew he was good and had great breadth of experience but I didn’t take the plunge until my employer offered a $ 250 health credit.
While it took being reimbursed to motivate me to finally work out with Matt, I’m so glad that I did! He’s a huge benefit to someone like me who is very particular with the way I like to be trained. One thing that really annoys me is when a personal trainer doesn’t do a good job in explaining things — Matt explains things in a way that just clicked immediately. He’s also great at delivering the right amount of encouragement and pushing you a little further than you think you can do, without being overbearing. Sometimes when a personal trainer is resembling a drill instructor I get annoyed and at times, discouraged. Matt let me ease into the exercises and once we realized I was able to catch on to the movement and rep and/​or weight, he’d ease me into doing just 5 more! Or, let’s just see how this weight feels. I ended up surprising myself with how much further I could push myself which motivated me to try harder during the work out.
Before we got started with our sessions he sat down with me to talk about my motivation behind the sessions, what kind of exercise has resonated with me in the past (or not), and any past or current injuries to be aware of. From there he really will personalize your session based on the above, but what you can always count on is a solid 10 minutes at the beginning focused on warming up the body and getting prepped for the workout itself. Matt is a big believer in ensuring the body and mind are properly warmed up to prevent injury, which I appreciate. You can also expect Matt to take the time to make sure you’re holding your body and doing the exercise with the right form — to prevent injury and to maximize the work out. The session always ends with a cool down and stretches.
Our sessions are always held outside, utilizing a variety of things like gymnastic rings to kettle bells and dumb bells. But if you’re more into working out within a gym setting with weights and machines, he can create a program centered around that, too.
If you’ve been thinking about hiring a personal trainer for yourself or wanting to do a group session with friends, definitely give Matt a call for a trial session. I’ve never actually liked working out with trainers — they were just a reason to get me to the gym. Suffice to say I like working out with Matt enough that I’m writing this review so you can find him, too!