XPT Coach of the Week: Lindsay Ashmun
Name: Lindsay Ashmun
Age: 40
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Business/Gym Name: groundcontrolnyc
Social Media Handles: @groundcontrolnyc
XPT: Hey there Lindsay Ashmun! Tell us about yourself!
LA: I own a personal training business called groundcontrol in New York City. I specialize in strength conditioning and mobility for clients using pilates, yoga, primal movement and various somatic approaches.
I am a lifelong athlete and I toured around the world as a professional modern dancer for many years. I grew up on a farm in Virginia eating the food my family raised. I went to a Buddhist university in Colorado where I made a lot of performance art and learned how to meditate. I abhor the smell of Patchouli. I prefer to drive a manual transmission. I am a proud single mom of my awesome son, Jackson!
XPT: What's your favorite XPT-related tip, discipline, or activity to teach your clients?
LA: I require steady focus and presence from my clients during physically demanding sessions. My goal with every client is to help develop more embodiment and ownership of one’s physical expression and fitness goals by building clearer interoceptive and proprioceptive awareness.
Sometimes this comes from powerful exertion of energy in movement, or the opposite: stilling the body to study the breath. XPT illuminates and seamlessly weaves breath awareness throughout the whole landscape of the sessions. Breathwork is integral to optimum performance and optimum recovery. By staying conscious of the breath and spine as the foundation of all movement, we always know where we are, where we came from. It allows us to keep a steady sense of progression towards our goals.
XPT: How has XPT impacted you and/or your clients? Tell us your success stories!
LA: As a trainer, my aim is to help my clients re-pattern movement and breathing habits in a way that fortifies their lives with more strength, support, range, and adaptability. XPT has systemized a lifestyle that does not separate performance from recovery, but loops them together so that there is a fluid interdependency between the two.
In a time when health and fitness is fractured by an excess of options and locations on what to do and where to do it, XPT gives us a clear map, one which shows we have everything we need to thrive and live a vibrant life within our reach. To me, that’s the foundation of the success stories I see.
XPT: Tell us something that stands out in your mind about XPT. A quote you remember from Certifications? A cool client story? A personal story as it pertains to XPT in your life?
LA: Laird’s quote: “Don’t be a Liability.” PJ Nestler shared this with us in the training and I think I say this to myself and my clients multiple times a day. It is a reminder to respect our bodies as the living, growing, changing organism that it is—to reconsider the stress that we choose to put upon ourselves and ask if it is ‘constructive’ or ‘destructive’. Life constantly delivers stressful circumstances that are out of our control, so it’s imperative to train in a way that prepares us for anything. Train to develop tolerance, strength and deep inner calm, and be rewarded by more ease and good sustainable energy.